Garden Designers & Landscape Gardeners
Garden Buildings in South & East England

Yucca Gloriosa

This stunning Yucca was once the most common in the UK. There are plenty of mature plants about in peoples front gardens that appear to have been there for around 20 years or more. Some of these have formed trunks, flowered and branched many times making impressive specimens, and their longevity is testimony to their hardiness. Recently they seem to have become a little more scarce in nurseries, replaced by Yuccas recurva and floribunda.

Yucca gloriosa is distinguished by its silver grey leaf, the sides of which curl upwards slightly towards the razor sharp tip. The leaf is rigid and does not arch or curve, older leaves eventually hang down and may form a 'skirt' around the trunk. Plants can flower at a relatively young age of only 2 or 3 seasons old when planted in the ground. They produce a thick spike from the centre of the rosete of leaves which is dark pink on the stem, as it matures to a length of about 1m many creamy white bell shaped flowers emerge to cover the spike, making an impressive display. The flowers usually appear from september onwards, lasting into the frosts. Occasionally a spike will emerge very early in the spring.