How to Grow Yucca rostrata Plants in your Garden

Gardener's HQ Guide to Growing Beaked Yucca

If you are only planning to grow one Yucca Species in the garden then you should seriously consider Yucca rostrata, the Beaked yucca, as your choice.

Ideally grow in large containers, in a bed or border, in gravel, or in a low water requirement xeriscape garden.

Yucca Rostrata 'Blue Velvet' at Huntington Botanical Garden, picture by cultivar413, Creative Commons.

This plant makes a great focal point for any part of the garden and is especially useful for landscaping large dry areas.

It is a deer and rabbit resistant, and drought tolerant, plant that requires little maintenance.

Beaked yucca makes a nice plant to grow in a wild life garden if you wish to attract hummingbirds.

This attractive evergreen plant usually reaches from 8 to 16 feet (2.5 to 5 m) in height and does best when grown in the sun.

Of all the ornamental Yucca plants this is perhaps the nicest looking. It is slow growing plant. The single trunk is thick and it can reach as much as 16 feet (5 m) tall.

Yucca rostrata plant in tree form, photograph by Forest and Kim Starr; CC.

It has an attractive pompom like head, which itself contain hundreds of thin sword-shaped leaves. Although stiff, these leaves are flexible and look nice swaying in the wind.

These sturdy leaves are typically 2 feet (60 cm) in length, thin, a pale grey-blue-green color with yellow margins, slightly waxy, and tapered at the tip. The leaves of the cultivar 'Saphire Skies; are a powder blue color.

Yucca rostrata and park benches photograph by Megan Hansen, CC.

Yucca rostrata blooms in spring when it carries a long panicle of white flowers. The inflorescence itself is a yellow-orange color and can reach about 40 inches (100 cm) in height.

Beaked Yucca in bloom, photograph by William Herron; CC.

This plant is very similar in appearance to Yucca rigida, though its leaves are not as stiff and rigid.

Plants are native to the rocky slopes, canyons, and ridges of North Mexico and western Texas. This can be a tough environment, and plants are hardy to 0°F (-17°C) or even lower.

Yucca rostrata grown as a as a container plant, image by Herry Lawford; CC.

I hope that you enjoyed this guide on how to grow Yucca rostrata. You may also enjoy the following Yucca growing guides: How to grow Yucca thompsoniana and Spine Yucca.