Softleaf yucca makes a good point
Last week I posted about punctuating a fine-textured garden with bold-leaf or boldly shaped plants. Here’s another one that I use to set off the fine leaves of Salvia greggii , Cuphea ignea, Bulbine frutescens , and ‘Powis Castle’ artemesia: Yucca recurvifolia , or softleaf yucca.
I adore the smooth texture and striated blue-green coloring of this yucca.
Each leaf, which is flexible rather than stiff, terminates in a sharp point, so you still have to mind your eyes when you’re weeding around it.
But I find it worth the effort for the exclamation point it brings to the flowering mounds nearby. If I’d stayed in this house one more spring, I think I would have seen this yucca bloom. Established plants throw up a tall flower stalk hung with bell-like white flowers. Deer find the flowers delicious and will decimate the stalks while leaving the plant alone, but that’s not a problem in my current neighborhood.
The new neighborhood? Hello deer.
All material © 2006-2008 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Hi Pam, so pretty but still with that dagger point, darn. But the perfect foil for the salvia greggiis, maybe just this one, not by a path edge….and then you add hello deer! Oh no. I am so sorry. Do you have a plan in place? List of resistant plants, plan to build a high fence?
Frances, I asked the current owners of our soon-to-be home whether deer ever get into the back yard, and they said no. There is a fence that, at 6 feet high, surely doesn’t prevent them but must discourage them. Deer do come into the front yard, however, so that is where I must choose deer-resistant plants. This yucca certainly qualifies. I just wouldn’t see it bloom for very long. —Pam
I wish some of these would be suitable for my zone 6 garden. I don’t think they would grow here. I just love the texture and colors.
I wish you could grow this one too, Lisa. But I suppose it’s one of those regional plants that gives an area its identity. There are many northern plants I’d love to have in my garden. —Pam
Ah – deer. So much I could say about that. Just remember that they like to come around when you plant anything at all, they are drawn to the turned earth and mulch and might just toss about things that they aren’t even remotely interested in eating — just to mess with you! Holler if you have any questions along your new path, since I am naming mine!
I suppose I’ll have to get to know my deer neighbors and their taste in gardens. I understand that deer can vary greatly in their salad bar habits. When I was at Bonnie’s the other day, I saw that her deer had even eaten some agaves. I may have to string barbed wire around the ‘Whale’s Tongue.’ —Pam
We can grow Yucca filamentosa (aka Y. smalliana), “up north” but once you plant it, it is hard to get rid of. Plus, it tends to have a lot of the lower leaves turn brown, so seems to need constant pruning to keep it looking nice. But if we had Yucca plants like yours, I’d definitely consider it for an accent plant in my garden.
You’ve already gone into unusual territory for an “up north” gardener by planting a prickly pear, Carol. With a yucca too, your neighbors might start to wonder. —Pam
I have one yucca out front and center where the deer sleep in the meadow. Other great deer resistant plants are salvia, agastache, buddleia, ornamental grasses, osmanthus fragrans, nepeta, tall verbena and homestead, vitex, monarda, ageratum (perennial), iris pseudocorus, Dutch iris…I could go on, but this is a comment, not a thesis! LOL
It’s interesting to hear what gardeners in deer country rely on. Most of the plants on your list are good for Austin as well. I’d add rosemary, artemisia, and even cast-iron plant. I’ll be comparing notes with you soon, DYH. —Pam
I love the green blue striations on that first picture of your Yucca! I could paint a room that color!
Color-matched paint to the rescue! That would be pretty, Layanee. —Pam
Hello Pam! This has to be one of my favorite plants from your collection of fantastic plants! But then it really looks good in your garden and terribly out of place in some up here. Gail
Yes, sometimes a plant has a very regional look. This may be one of them. Well, that’s what makes visiting other places interesting, right? —Pam
How about New Zealand Flax, does that do well where you are? It looks a lot like that Yucca.
I rarely see New Zealand flax here in Austin, GardenGrrrl, much as I admire it in California gardens pictured in magazines. I believe it is both cold tender and, ironically, susceptible to burning in our summers. —Pam
Bad news Pam-although the deer don’t eat the yucca plants, they love the blooms. I have several different yuccas planted along my half mile of driveway and almost never get to see them bloom. Even the hundred or so Twisted Leaf yuccas, that were here already, almost never get to bloom undisturbed. The masses of Red Bloom yuccas that I have planted do so well at spreading out but look so bad with their scraggly, gnawed on stalks. The deer just hook their head around a stalk and back up, bending the stalk down to edible level.
Also, all the suggestions about other plants that deer won’t eat is out the window when we have a year like this one. Their normal food sources are baked dry and tasteless with no nutrition from the lack of rain and extreme temps. But your plants, not normally on their food lists, become more palatable because they have been watered and are growing in better soil.
So there will be problems but it’s a challenge that you will have to deal with but I’ll bet you will know all about it in a year or two. Also it gives you an excuse to buy more plants-you know, to see what looks good and a deer wont eat. Good luck
I know how tasty those bloom stalks are to hungry deer, and your experience certainly confirms that. I hear from clients all the time who tell me that their deer eat plants that are officially “deer-resistant.” It’s got to be frustrating to garden under those conditions, but then again, there’s always something. At least I’ll have the back yard as a deer-free zone. Then again, it won’t be kid-free (darn those soccer balls!). —Pam
Great photos. I have very few yucca plants now that I think about it. The one I always wanted to get is Soaptree yucca, which has the most heavenly smelling flowers. Now is our best planting time. Maybe I should act on that thought. Thanks for reminding me with your yucca photos.
Aiyana
That’s one of the biggies, isn’t it? If you get one, please post about it. Do you have to contend with deer in your desert garden, Aiyana? —Pam
Wow, Incredible blog. I just love the photos. I wish I had a huge piece of land to grow plants like crazy. Really enjoyed your site
Thanks for visiting, John. I sometimes wish I had a huge piece of land to grow plants too. But my current garden is rather small, and my next one isn’t much bigger. Still, that keeps things manageable. —Pam
But don’t be shy about having the yucca in your new home as well. So let the deer have the stalk, you’ll still enjoy the plant.
That’s a good attitude, Bonnie. I’ll try to remind myself of that when the deer are noshing. 😉 —Pam
Although your combinations of salvias and cupheas with Yuccas look very Central Texas, Pam, it’s just as valid for people in Illinois to poke Yucca filamentosa into their borders with Miscanthus, coneflowers, and daylilies. That yucca is native over most of the East and Midwest (even Pennsylvania!) and was a passalong plant in the older Chicago suburbs where I lived.
One warning – the clumps get enormous, and any yucca leaves that get into the shredder at cleanup time can use their unbreakable threads to tie your machinery into knots.
With a 6-foot fence in combination with a slope, your new back yard should be safe from deer. Does Nerf make soccer balls?
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Based on your and Carol’s description of that Yucca filamentosa, I’d be a little scared to have it my garden. 😉 —Pam
LOVE Yucca recurvifolia! I went through a phase where I couldn’t design without it – don’t we all have plants like that? Right now, I am using Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon’ like it is going out of style. – oh, wouldn’t those two look dreamy together?
Gotta go try it out!
I had to look up the Grevillea on the Web, Germi. It’s listed as Zone 9, and we’re in 8b. I wonder if anyone’s had success overwintering it in Austin. It does look dreamy. —Pam
Hi Pam! The yucca is gorgeous for sure, but what I’m curious about is what is the red flowering shrub or perennial surrounding it? Also I wanted to let you know that our landscaping is coming along nicely, most of the plants have been planted, and I’ve taken some of your suggestions into consideration. I think it’s all going to be gorgeous. I’m crossing my fingers that the Sky Pencil Holly plants do fine and survive behind the waterfall. Thanks for the hour-long on-site consultation last week!
Hi, Kelly! That red flowering plant is bat-face cuphea (Cuphea llavea), which would look great in a sunny spot near your pool. It doesn’t always come back after the winter, but if you buy a 4-inch pot in the spring, you’ll get a whole summer and fall of non-stop color. I enjoyed working with you and am glad to hear that everything is turning out great. By the way, I popped over to your site, and your card creations are amazing—so creative and beautiful! —Pam