Boom Year for Yucca Blooms

Spring rains have awakened a wonderful show of wildflowers on the Front Range this year. And along with all the smaller species, we see that our local Yucca glauca is having a boom bloom year. The flower stalks are pushing upward and will soon be blooming profusely, looking like big white candles dotting the landscape. The large bell-shaped, lily-like, fragrant flowers are creamy white to pale green and hang downward from a central stalk. They have thick, waxy petals that conserve moisture for a long bloom time.

In contrast, the evergreen, stiff and sharply pointed blades forming a rosette are well armed. The blades are strikingly beautiful, especially poking out of the snow. Yucca glauca grows from Montana to Texas in very dry conditions. In the home landscape, they need no watering. However, I have noticed that yuccas flower much more profusely following a moist spring, like we are having. This is because native plants like yucca are very smart about survival; they know that the seeds that follow from the flowers take enormous amounts of energy from the mother plant. So gardeners could irrigate once or twice in early spring to encourage flowering.

The sweet flowers can be very attractive to aphids, which can form large, squirming, sticky masses as they suck the sap. I used to be disgusted by this failure in pest management, and I removed the infested stalks. Now I leave them. Moving a yucca one fall, I discovered a mass of Lady Bugs, overwintering at its base. Then I understood: the Lady Bugs have the natural intelligence to know that next to a yucca there will be aphids to feed their young. So leave the aphids to feed the Lady Bugs, the Lacewings, the Hover Flies and other allies. And don’t spray the aphids or you could risk killing the Pronuba Moth, which is the only insect that can successfully pollinate the yucca, and whose larvae must feed on the developing yucca seeds as part of this symbiotic relationship.

Yucca glauca’s common name is Soap Weed. This is because the yucca roots contain saponins that native Americans and settlers used to make washing soap and shampoo. It works very well because saponins are surfactants that reduce the surface tension of water. This quality also makes yucca root extracts an effective additive to water to help plants better absorb water and nutrients. It is also used by growers to help sprays stick to plant leaves. We have been using yucca extracts in our plant propagation for 25 years. The yucca extract product we carry has the unfortunate name of ‘Sledge Hammer’, but we can ignore that.

I have been taking one yucca capsule a day to help with hydration, especially working outdoors in the summer. I have also learned that yucca root has been used herbally for arthritis, inflammation, upset stomach, kidney stones and other functions. You can find shredded yucca root at Rebecca’s Herbal Apothecary.

So, plant a Yucca glauca in your dry garden, but not too near a walkway. It is a beautiful, drought tolerant, broad-leafed evergreen, and it is a local native. And go out to see it blooming in Nature. It’s having a great year!

Here are some of the what I saw blooming on a friend’s property near the foothills this weekend: