17 Unique Yucca Plants & Yucca Caring Guide (2020)

Yucca plants are gaining popularity as one of the top choices both for indoor and outdoor gardens. Originated from the desert-like environments of the Americas and the Caribbean, Yucca is drought-resistant and famous for being easy to take care of.

Are you interested to know more about growing and having yucca plants in your own space? Read more to know different types of yucca plants and how to take care of them.

Yucca Plants Indoor & Outdoor Types with Pictures

A beautiful plant from its classic green to bluish-colored leaves, there are 40 species of yucca ranging from small shrubby ones to tall tree-like plants.

1. Spineless Yucca

Spineless yucca can grow up to 30 feet, hence it is also called as the “Giant Yuca”but it is more commonly grown as a small potted plant and the top variety of yucca used as an indoor plant. Its spineless leaves also gave way to its more common name. Perfect for both indoor and outdoor, Spiness Yucca have thick trunks that can either be a single or multi-trunks. During summer, spineless yucca blooms white flowers that will grow into brown fleshy fruits.

2. Red Yucca

Named after its pinkish cluster flowers, Red Yucca plants are great additions to outdoor gardens especially when trying to create a striking contrast and texture. Native of northern Mexico and the Chihuahuan desert of Texas, this kind of yucca plant grows like a grass with its long stalks of flowers.

3. Yellow Yucca

The uncommon cousin of the Red Yucca is the Yellow, that is often planted next to each other with the Red Yucca, creating bi-colored gardens. Like the red yucca, its beauty lies on its cluster of trumpet-like yellow flowers that are known to attract hummingbirds. Thus, the yellow and red yucca are also known as, “hummingbird yucca”.

4. Adam’s Needle

Native to Southeastern USA, Adam’s Needle has been used more than just for landscaping. With its fibrous leaves, Native Americans used its leaf fibers for clothing while its roots were used as shampoos. Its name was derived from its sharp-tipped leaves. A trunkless variety of yucca, Adam’s Needle is grown as a specimen plant or for fire-proof gardens. It is also known for its lantern like-white flowers.

5. Joshua Tree

The largest variety of yucca plant, Joshua tree was named by Mormon pioneers due to its sturdy tree-like appearance reminded them of the story from the Old Testament of the prophet Joshua, waving in prayer. Growing up to 40 feet and can live up to 150 years (though it can mature in 50-60 years), the Joshua Tree is considered by horticulturists as an exotic variety of yucca. The Joshua tree only grows in the Mojave Desert at the elevation of at least 2,000 ft.

6. Blue Joshua Tree

Yucca Rostrata variety is nicknamed the Blue Joshua Tree due to its resemblance of the tree-like structure of the Joshua Tree. One of the most sought-after outdoor yucca plants, the blue Joshua tree  brings instant beauty to any garden with its sharp bluish-purple leaves.

7. Dwarf Joshua Tree

A more common yucca variety is the dwarf Joshua Tree. Looks identical to the Joshua tree but its shorter version – growing to a maximum of only 12 feet compared to the 40-foot Joshua tree. Its branches are also more compacted unlike the spread-like branches of the Joshua tree.

8. Soapweed Yucca

Also known as the Yucca Glauca, this type of yucca planet grows in central North America, as far as some areas of Canada like Alberta and Saskatchewan. As an evergreen shrub, this is great for an all-season landscape plant with its beautiful rosette-forming blue-green leaves. When in bloom, it has green or white fragrant flowers.

9. Spanish Dagger

Another southeastern US native, the Yucca gloriousa or the Spanish Dagger is a favorite outdoor ornamental plant. Its sword-like foliage gave way to its popular name. With its unique growth pattern and flowers, this variety of yucca plant is used in landscaping as an accent or as a background.

10. Beaked Yucca

Also known as the Big Bend Yucca, the Beaked Yucca is characterized as a single trunk yucca with its iconic pom-pom shaped sharp pale bluish leaves. Soft thin gray fibers from its old leaves gives an illusion of a silvery haze. When in bloom, the beaked yucca has a yellow-orange flowers. Considered by many gardeners as one of the most handsome yucca plants, it is widely used in Mediterranean and gravel gardens.

11. Bear Grass Yucca

Often mistaken as an Adam’s Needle, Bear Grass is one of the few variety of yucca plant that has adopted to extreme cold and even frost. That is why, bear grass yucca also grows in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. Though Bear Grass and Adam’s Needle may look almost the same, bear grass have softer leaves – its name came from the fact that young bears eat their stems. Bear grass yucca also bear head-shaped white flowers.

12. Banana Yucca

Yucca plants have many uses for Native Americans, even food and Banana Yucca is the type of yucca plant that bears edible fruits. Its banana-shaped fruits (thus the name) are fleshy as well as succulent, eaten by Navajo and Apache Indians. Like most yucca plants, its leaves are sharp and they grow flowers in spring.

13.  Mojave Yucca

One of the bigger variety of yucca plants is the Mojave Yucca. As it belongs to the same genus as the Joshua tree, Mojave Yucca has a tree-like structure and a distinct cane trunk. Commonly found in Mojave Desert, it can grow up to 16 feet and with its sharp-edged leaves, can be planted in a big pot as an accent to a large open space.

14. Spanish Bayonet

Another Yucca type that can grow taller at most 15 feet, its long sharp leaves make Spanish Bayonet easy to identify. One of the common yucca plants used in bigger gardens, Spanish Bayonet is also the best choice for seaside garden as this variety is resistant to salty environment.

15. Color Guard

One of the varieties of an Adam’s Needle, Color Guard yucca plant are great for both indoor and outdoor use. Like most shrubby-type of yucca, it is great for indoor accents as houseplant while when it matures and grows bigger, Color Guard becomes a good addition outdoor. It is characterized by its varied foliage of yellow bordered with green.

16. Yucca Elata

Commonly known as the Soaptree Yucca, due how its trunk and roots were used as soaps back in the day, the Yucca Elata is one of the tallest kind of yuccas. This plant stands and dwells mostly in the Chihuahuan Desert but now a common sight in elegant gardens. Its palm-like leaves, white flowers, and height that can reach up to 30 feet, make the Yucca Elata a favorite ornamental plant in outdoor gardens.

17. Thompson’s Yucca

With its single or dual trunk and pom-pom shaped foliage, Thompson’s Yucca is often mistaken as a Beak Yucca. However, Thompson’s Yucca is smaller than Beak Yucca and can only reach at most 6 feet tall. Its quite a beauty with its perfect shape and look that will instantly accentuate any space both indoor and outdoor.

 

Are Yucca Plants Safe for our Family Pet?

While Yucca plants have increasingly gained popularity as an indoor plant, there is one major concern about having them around – it can be harmful to your family pet. Cats and dogs might graze and chew on its leaves and afterward you see constipated, weak, and vomiting. This is because Yucca plant contains steroidal saponins which is toxic to cats and dogs.

Most yucca plant varieties have sharp leaves and hard trunk, making them impossible for your pets to nibble but there is one kind of yucca you have to think if you have pets – the Spineless Yucca. This shrub is one of the most common houseplants around and due to its softer leaves, cats might be drawn to graze on them.

If you see further signs of pet poisoning like incoordination, weakness, and dilated pupils among cats, call your veterinarian or pet poisoning hotline right away.

Yucca Plant Guide: How to Care for Them

One of the reasons people are drawn to buy and take care of yucca plants is their reputation to be low-maintenance. Even for indoor types of yucca plants, people like them as they don’t need much attention or sensitive – the perfect plant for modern and on the go people.

Light for the Yucca Plants

When taking care of Yucca plants indoors, make sure they receive sunlight by placing them in a partly shaded area of your space. They need a bright but indirect light to grow.

Yucca Plant Watering

How often should you water your yucca plant? Since they are native to dry soil and drought-resistant, you don’t have to water them every day. This is the key part of why yuccas are easy to take care of – they don’t need daily splashes. Instead, allow half of the soil to be dry before you water them again.

Overwatering is one of the main reasons a yucca plant dies. If you notice brown ends on the leaves and they are drooping as well as the foul smell from its roots – then you are overwatering your yucca plant.

Soil and Pots

Soil condition is very important when growing a yucca plant. If you didn’t buy your yucca plant is ready-made pot, the right soil for this plant should have a 3:1 sand and peat ratio. Make sure water drains easily where you potted the yucca since they don’t thrive in moist and watery soil.

Yucca Maintenance

For indoor yucca plants, they need some dusting off like sprinkling them with water to remove the dust or you can wipe them gently. For outdoor plants, keep them healthy-looking by removing old and dry leaves.

As slow-growing plants, they don’t frequent fertilizer. A well-balanced nitrogen fertilizer to boost your yucca plant’s health and growth.

Yucca Plant Benefits

Though a favorite houseplant and landscape ornamental plants, yucca plants have served various benefits for centuries, even before the discovery of the New World. Yucca plants have been used by Native Americans as food, shampoo, and weaving baskets from their fruits and flowers, roots, and leaves respectively.

Today, yucca plants are not just praised for their beauty and what they can do to a certain space or garden. Here are some benefits of having a yucca plant.

• Yucca plant are great air purifiers
• Yucca plants like those shrubs with sharp leaves can be planted below windows for security purposes.
• Yucca roots can be processed for its medicinal properties like sugar control, stress reliever, and joint pain remedies.
• Red and yellow yucca attract hummingbirds, giving more life to your garden.

Caring for your Yucca

With its beauty and low-maintenance, it doesn’t come as a surprise that Yucca plants have gained popularity. Whether you pick a shrub or tree-like variety, Yucca plants are great additions either for indoor or for your garden.

There are plenty of types of yucca and it is wise to pick the right one that suits your taste and purpose. Do you want it indoors only? Then you must pick the spineless kind, while those with bigger outdoor space who want to give their gardens a new look can consider having Spanish Bayonets. Needless to say, yucca plants are versatile in terms of adding personality from a minimalist apartment to a grand garden.