URBAN AG
Native yuccas
Creating landscape excitement
by Norman Winter, Horticulturist, Author and Speaker You want to plant with begonias? Do it. Red spider lilies? That works, too. Whatever the season, or the possible partnerships, all will look dazzling beyond your dreams when grown with these showy variegated yuccas. In the winter, in Columbus, GA, professional landscapers are using them as pansy pals which looked stunning even before the pansies kicked in to gear, so to speak. But its not just pansies. Another landscaper planted them with Citrona and Black Pearl heuchera as well as juncus and pansies.
These Color Guard yuccas seem to be the perfect foliage partner for this newly planted bed of pansies.
Look out America, Color Guard and Golden
UAC MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2019
Sword are changing landscapes in dramatic fashion. Believe it or not these two selections of our native Yucca filamentosa are crushing the cookie cutter, look-alike landscapes, no matter the season.
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Now when I say our native, I’m not talking the desert southwest but the east from Texas to New York. That’s correct: these evergreen yuccas are cold hardy from zones 4 through 10. Color Guard and Golden Sword create excitement by virtue of being an unexpected plant in the flower border, enticing all visitors to be mesmerized and thus bringing out the camera. Both varieties will reach 24-inches tall and perhaps a little wider showing of their green and gold variegation. While you might possibly be thinking, "I don’t want to grow a garden of yucca, cactus and agave," just know the palette of colors and partnerships is only limited by your imagination.
Typically, everyone thinks of cabbage, kale, mustard and chard as foliage plants to be pansy partners, which is certainly appropriate. They are treated as annuals to be replanted ever year. With the Color Guard or Golden Sword, however ,you will be growing one that is essentially an evergreen perennial. In addition to creating excitement by being an unexpected plant, they also stand out by virtue of rising above the horizontal plane. If you are unfamiliar with this term, think of a bed of pansies, marigolds or even petunias. You could conceivably draw an imaginary line across the top of the bed. When you rise above this with spikey flowers or in the case of the yucca, sword -ike foliage, then there is a tremendous amount of added interest. As you might expect from a native, it is an extremely drought-tolerant plant that requires good drainage. If your soil is clay or muck that holds water, then by all means improve your soil and plant on raised beds. They will produce offsets which can be separated to confine to allotted area or design and of course they can be planted elsewhere in the garden.
