Host an Event Volunteer Join Tickets

Support the plant database you love!

Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

Help us grow by giving to the Plant Database Fund or by becoming a member

Did you know you can access the Native Plant Information Network with your web-enabled smartphone?

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Search Smarty Plants
See a list of all Smarty Plants questions

Please forgive us, but Mr. Smarty Plants has been overwhelmed by a flood of mail and must take a break for awhile to catch up. We hope to be accepting new questions again soon. Thank you!

Need help with plant identification, visit the plant identification page.

 
rate this answer
1 rating

Thursday - February 09, 2012

From: Houston, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Planting, Cacti and Succulents
Title: Yucca filamentosa suffering from damp feet in Houston
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Last year, I planted three enormous and gorgeous Yucca Filamentosa in my backyard. Two are thriving but the third started turning yellow then brown from the bottom up after a few weeks of rains. Since the very top was showing new growth, I thought that maybe I could save this 6 foot wide behemoth. After some research, I decided that it was suffering root rot so I dug it up out of the ground, then I rinsed off all the dirt and started feeling around the root ball until i felt mushy stuff. I cut away a huge portion of the roots in the middle of the root ball. I then trimmed away all the yellow and brown leaves, leaving a rather long bare trunk ( about 15 inches worth) and the still-green crown. Finally, I repotted the remaining plant in fresh soil mixed with some sand. I haven't seen anymore yellowing since. Is there anything more I can do to save this plant?

ANSWER:

Sounds like the only additional help you could give all 3 of your Yucca filamentosa (Adam's needle) would be to get in your time machine, go back and plant them differently, with good drainage arranged for in advance. No time machine? These plants are tough and with some more attention to keeping the roots from getting so wet, should do just fine.

The real diagnosis here is transplant shock. You took 3 mature plants, the species of which is usually more fitted to deserts, and planted them, when they were already mature, in wet soil. Yuccas are, however, uniquely suited to this kind of mistake, because they propagate with great determination. In fact, once you have a yucca, you HAVE it, if you know what I mean. You can dig a yucca root completely out and throw it away, and in a few months you will have little plantlets coming up in a circle around the location of the original root. They can propagate from seeds, if there are yucca moths in the neighborhood to pollinate them, but they aggressively reproduce from even the smallest scraps of root.

In future, if you wish to plant more, for instance, offshoots of the existing plants, prepare the hole to be more desert-like. You can't do much about the rain (and in Austin we can't seem to do much about the lack of it) but you can make sure that the water that hits the soil around the plant drains away quickly. The use of sand in the new hole was good, adding some decomposed granite would help even more. But starting out with the right kind of hole and amendments is the best plan of all.

Be sure and follow this plant link Yucca filamentosa (Adam's needle) to our webpage on the plant for more information. In addition, here is an excellent article on How to Plant a Yucca Plant. And, finally, from Floridata where it's usually too wet, too, here is an article on Yucca filamentosa.

 

From the Image Gallery


Adam's needle
Yucca filamentosa

More Cacti and Succulents Questions

Use of Century Plant bloom as indoor decoration
December 09, 2008 - Mr. Smarty Pants, After living in Arizona and now San Antonio, I am in search of a Century Plant Bloom. I cannot have an evergreen because my cats climb them. I would shellac the stalk and blooms a...
view the full question and answer

Bloom on non-native Agave attenuata
May 13, 2008 - I have an Agave Attenuata that has grown a long and unsightly stem.Is there a way to cut the plant portion off and re-root the plant without killing the petal portion?
view the full question and answer

Lesions on Agave Leaves in Spring Branch, Texas
January 14, 2011 - I have a giant Agave americana that was beautiful until recently. Several of the leaves have lesions, some of them quite drastic, on the last third of the leaf. What is causing this?
view the full question and answer

Saving frozen yuccas from North Carolina
February 23, 2013 - I live in NC and have 2 potted yucca plants on my deck. Every year I have brought them in for the winter. This year, someone told us that we could leave them out all winter. They began to die in the c...
view the full question and answer

Landscaping on South Padre Island
June 07, 2008 - I'm in charge of landscaping at my beachfront condo in South Padre Island and find the wind, salt air, and heat challenging for growing almost anything. We would like to incorporate native plants, b...
view the full question and answer

Support the Wildflower Center by Donating Online or Becoming a Member today.