Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

The volunteer Mr. Smarty Plants Team members are also all members of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and we appreciate your joining us in our support of the mission of the Center.

You are posing us a tough problem - that of finding a plant very similar to a yucca, but not a yucca. Because we are not entomologists, we will first do a little research on what the offending insect is, and what he might tend to NOT eat. Most of the information we found referred to Halticoma valida, yucca plant bug. Here is a previous Mr. Smarty Plants answer on that bug.

Since most plants that "look like" yucca are also members of the Agavaceae (Agave) family, which also would be susceptible to the Yucca plant bug, we turned to grasses or grasslike plants native in or near to Williamson County. From our list of Recommended Species for Central Texas we found:

Dasylirion texanum (Texas sotol) (Map)

Nolina texana (Texas sacahuista) (Map)

The Map link after each plant link is to the USDA Plant Profile Map on that plant showing where it grows natively in Texas. Both are evergreen and both are members of the Liliaceae (lily) family and are neither true grasses nor succulents, so they should not be bothered by the same pests as the Agave family. When you follow the plant link to our webpage on each plant you will see that both can be seen growing at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. You will also find the growing conditions for each, including amount of water needed, expected mature size and sunlight needs.

Since it is not likely you will find either of these plants at large commercial nurseries or home improvement stores, we recomend you go to our National Suppliers Directory, put your town and state or just your zip code in the "Enter Search Location" box, press on GO and you will get a list of native plant nurseries, seed companies and consultants in your general area.