Thursday, February 7, 2013

Yucca schottii, oh my!


Yes…I’m blogging about yet another yucca, what can I say!? My my friend Bridget and I visited Cistus Nursery last week and this big beauty caught our eye…

It’s a Yucca schottii, which Sean says they collected as a pup in the Chiricahua Mountains, I suppose that would make it Yucca schottii 'Chiricahua High'

Here’s the full description: “A Cistus Introduction, our collection from near the summit of the Chiricahua Mts., a hardy yucca with very blue-gray leaves, to 3' long and sharply pointed, both stiff and more flexible than other "tree" yuccas. Eventually to 10' tall, single-trunked in youth to about 6' tall x 4' wide, then multi-trunked. Early summer flowers are white on tall stalks. For sun to part shade. An excellent garden species, both very drought tolerant and very frost hardy, accepting temperatures to -10 °F, USDA zone 6.” Guess what this is?...

Oh ya!

And this too…

According to Plant Delights Nursery Yucca Schottii is perfect if you “want to bring a piece of the desert into a damper temperate garden”…

Damp? Oh yes that would be my garden. Grow little guys grow!

21 comments:

  1. What a beauty! I've long been saying that yuccas are criminally underappreciated. I'm glad you're rectifying the situation.

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    1. Well heck when you put it that way I feel like I now have a mission!

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  2. I love this! Yuccas are one of the few plants that I can't kill and look lovely despite all of my efforts. I guess that another visit to Cistus will have to happen soon as now I want this one too! (You evil temptress, you!)

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  3. Damp...ha ha. You're talking the entire Northwest!

    The shape of those yucca leaves is lovely, a bit more curved than the typical yucca leaf. And the color: Yes! I am constantly drawn to that gray-blue shade of foliage.

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    1. I'm sure I've walked by this one a hundred times, there was just something about the lighting that morning that made the grey-blue color pop!

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  4. What a gorgeous Yucca! I regret not getting one now when I had the chance....

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  5. Good choice for your yucca forest! You are most qualified to teach many of us southwesterners about plant ideas...

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    1. Haha! Wouldn't that be funny? "PNW blogger/gardener speaks to Albuquerque garden group about plant choices for the home garden"...I love it!

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  6. Choice yucca!!!! Yay for yucca love. That is definitely a winner. Good to hear it can handle to damp too. I wonder how it feels about completely saturated... A better descriptor for my garden right now

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    1. I've been tempted but haven't done any digging in the soil yet to see just exactly how wet things are. I'm afraid your descriptor might be more spot on here too.

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  7. I wonder how long it will take for these little guys to elbow out everything around them. Cistus, here I come!

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    1. Yes how long before my gardening chores become full of removal and editing? Oh the horror!

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  8. I just might need to check into that one. I can keep it with the dozen other yuccas and agave that I'm trying to find a bed for... So blue. So pointy.

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    1. Indeed it is pointy. Even the little guys leaves are very stiff!

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  9. I have one too, from Cistus, and it's doing fine. I had a larger one, but it hated last February's wet snow, melting during the day, and freezing at night. Maybe if the snow hadn't stayed on the ground for six horrible weeks it would have been happier. Me too.
    There's one in Dan Johnson's Denver garden that's pretty big, and DBG has a big colony of them in "Yuccarama".

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    1. A colony? Yuccarama? I so need to visit Denver. Those are words I never thought I'd say.

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  10. Grrr!

    I am getting plant envy again ;)

    I hope they grow well and flourish in your garden!

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  11. Er mah gerd I think I'm in love.

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