Yucca Pruning - How To Remove Dead Leaves from a Yucca Plant

Don't pull the dead leaves one by one! Learn this fast and easy way to cleanup your yucca plants.
Yuccas are excellent textural plants in the garden that are easy to grow and require minimal maintenance. After a year or so, you might notice some dead foliage in and around the clumps. Those brown leaves are dry yucca crowns that died after flowering. Our Senior Horticultural Garden Supervisor Doug Ruhren shows you the quickest way to clean up those dried crowns and get your yucca plants looking fresh again.
Complete transcript and additional pics - www.plantdelig...
Plant Delights Nursery is an award winning nursery in Raleigh, NC near Garner. We specialize in rare, and unusual perennials and we strive to carry a wide selection of exotic plants, cold hardy tropical plants, and native plants. Many of our best perennials are available nowhere else in the US as they represent rare plants collected by Plant Delights founder Tony Avent during his more than 60 plant hunting expeditions to places like China, Crete, Taiwan, South Africa and Argentina or distributed by some of the many specialty plant organizations of which Plant Delights is a member.
www.plantdelig...
Juniper Level Botanic Garden was founded in 1986 by Tony Avent to promote and preserve botanic diversity by bridging the gap between botany and horticulture through plant study, identification, educational outreach, global plant exploration. JLBG is home to over 28,000 taxa spread over 28 acres of beautiful grounds.
www.jlbg.org
Follow us on Facebook for latest garden news, gardening tips, new plant announcements, and more!
/ plantdelightsnursery
Subscribe to our channel to discover more plants and learn about gardening.
/ @plantdelights

[@dotaylor6658]

So nice to see you again Doug!

[@shannonwalker4147]

Thank you. I have looked for a simple video on pruning yuccas and this is the best one by far.

[@Plantdelights]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Midnight-gx7fj]

Thanks so much. I never knew how this was done.

[@kimzacharias9940]

Thanks for this video. I am new to caring for Yucca plants, this will help me greatly!

[@jeffminnich8155]

Excellent tutorial! Thank you!

[@bethlehemlutheran9416]

Thank you!! I was cleaning mine out last night and wasn't sure if I was doing it right!!! Again Thank you!!!!

[@Plantdelights]

You are welcome!

[@kathyhornbuckle4966]

Thank you Doug!

[@neilscothern420]

Nicely explained thankyou

[@TheDj4088]

So that's where Doug went... good info 🙂

[@Plantdelights]

Yes indeed! We are glad to have him onboard.

[@kssh6303]

Thank you!

[@MrWillario]

After the flowers bloom and die off, do you cut down the stalk? If so, how far down the stalk do you cut?

[@sbffsbrarbrr]

Yes, you cut of the stalk as close to the bottom interior of the rosette as you can. I use the long handled loppers like in the video.
Not a big deal if you leave five or six inches.
Try to do this before the stalk completely dries out, while the seed heads are still relatively green. That way the seeds don't go all over the place.
There are hundreds of seeds on the stalk if you are interested in growing these from seed, although it takes many years before they flower. I've done this and it's fun watching the yuccas grow. Am thinking of bringing one of the seedlings indoors to see how it does.
The variety that I have is Adam's Needle, similar to the one in the video.

[@lc6513]

Thank you for this video, Doug! Any chance there could be little animals inhabiting that we should watch for? Oklahoma here...

[@Plantdelights]

Doug's reply: The only critter I see with yuccas are yucca bugs.
Small animals might take shelter in the yucca clumps, but will scatter if you make some noise or ruffle the foliage.

[@SleepyKittens]

In z4b MN, the stems have been fairly easy to remove for the Color Guard cultivar. Wonder if the subzero temp softens the stems a bit to allow for easier removal?

[@blackdong4footwangnosucky]

UR not dat bright RU

[@brucerodbro7188]

Wher the heck is z4b Mn?

[@passepartoot]

May I use this approach to remove live offshoots of a clumping Yucca filamentosa? I want to control the size of my clumps which are now very wide.

[@TheBarefootedGardener]

Doug mentioned that no one does that pruning maintenance in nature- I also love the redneck lingo: toughgrass 😂
would fires burn that away?. Also figured Doug wouldn’t stay retired for too long!

[@ferhadjiyan6953]

How to propagate these plant ? Are there any video ?

[@Plantdelights]

Hello! Yuccas are usually propagated by division. The underground tubers have dormant eyes that can be stimulated into growth by removing the main growth point. This method works well for non-trunked varieties. Yuccas that form trunks often have dormant eyes along the trunk under the main crown. In nature, they are often brought down by storms, so they adapted to form new roots and buds along the stem and just continue growing.

[@pansepot1490]

I haven’t touched my yuccas in almost 30 years.

[@marct5211]

Any ideas on why most of the leaves would have developed brown spots? not sure how to resolve :(

[@Plantdelights]

It's hard to say, most probably a fungus.

[@starrystarrynight9822]

Is there only one rosettes per individual yucca plant or can 1 plant have multiple rosettes?

[@Plantdelights]

One root can produce multiple rosettes.

[@sbffsbrarbrr]

@@Plantdelights Oh boy can it!!!

[@marisolreyes8295]

Should this be done at a specific time of year?

[@Plantdelights]

Cleaning the old foliage from yuccas can be done most anytime of the year, but we like cleaning them up in early spring so they have been cleaned when they start to flush.

[@heatherdavidburton7647]

Had them my whole life never there name just called them the pokie plant

[@leokolev]

Thanks!!! Nice video!!!

[@Plantdelights]

Glad you liked it!