Cutting Yukka down in the fall?

Hello

I have a question about some Yukka plants I have growing outside in my garden. I live in the north east of the US and each fall my Yukka plants collect all kinds of leaves which are nearly impossible to remove. also many of the yukka leaves were damaged. They looked terrible, so in the sping I dug them all up and over the summer they all grew back nicely. I was wondering if I can just cut them down this time , Will they grow up nice again each year? And would it be better to do it in the early spring or late fall? I hope someone will be kind enough to share some info with me. Thank you in advance.

 

if you cut them down this fall, odds are that they wont bloom for next year, yucca's take along time for their foliage to grow back, and if you were to, they wouldnt look to pleasing next spring!

 

If I were you, I would in fall, start at bottom and pull off the leaves by hand. Pull them all off. In other words strip the stem bare. Just leave the top center which is the growth point. COmes spring ot will grow out nicely and in interim there would be no leaves to collect falling leaves. Also, the plant will grow faster in height.

 

To offer more help....I think this is Yucca species that doesn't grow a trunk given the climate it grows in. I didn't quite understand if you were digging up the plants & leaves, then letting it grow back from the roots OR cutting the leaves back down to the ground? Neither is REALLY sustainable for the plant but cutting them back is MUCH better than digging them up.

Personally, I would leave it alone. Yuccas quickly outgrow their damaged leaves & the damaged leaves can selectively be cut. As for the accumulation of tree leaves, hand picking them (with gloves), or using a leaf blower is effective.

Simon

 

Hi all, I wanted to try to clarify my situation. My yukka plants were massive, they had been in my garden for many years and they had massive tap roots. The plants were horrible looking they were full of hundreds and hundreds of leaves that had fallen from the trees throughout the years, and the actual yukka leaves were very old broken bent and ripped. I thought that the only thing to do was to just get rid of them all together . So i dug them all up and threw them away. In a few months they had come back from the tap root that was still deep under the ground. I was very surprised that they came back so fast. They actually looked nice for the first time in years. So I thought perhaps I could just cut them down to the ground every fall or spring . If they would just continue to come back year after year like they did when I dug them up I would be content to keep them.

 

Yes you can cut them down in either fall or spring but neither is good for the long term health of the plant (& I don't think one is better than the other). The Yucca (notice spelling) will decline, become less vigorous, and likely will stop flowering for you.

See my quote from the previous post

Simon

 

I have two yukka and had no idea what to do for the winter.
I live in Toronto Zone 5 with very cold winters.
I completely left them alone to see what nature does.
Sure enough they came back on their own. First some foliage turned brown in the spring. I took them off when they were seperating on their own.
I did not force anything.
They even duplicated.
Sometimes we tend to do too much.