The end of June is when the Soap Yucca bloom. They are native plants in the truest form; they require absolutely no cultivation. Just stand back and watch them grow. They adapt to each year's weather conditions. In harsh years they they bloom weakly; with skinny stalks, and sparse blossoms. In moist years they explode with a multitude of thick stalks, and lush flowers. This winter was relatively moist, and the yucca are responding.
Their seeds will make new yucca, or feed the birds, and rabbits (among others). If necessary the seeds will remain in the ground for up to 24 years waiting for just the right conditions to start growing. Once established their tap roots go down to hell, never to be found by a gardener trying to move one.
This is what you will see if you walk out my front door and look up.
These are the same yucca seen from the foot of the driveway.
These yucca are the guardians of the gas meter. They are all that stand between the gas meter and the paper delivery person in the dark of early morning.
This stalk was so heavy with flowers that it bent to the ground allowing me to take a close up. They are a waxy thick bloom that is a cream color.
Some yucca, like these in my neighbors yard, follow their own, less direct, path to the sky.
I look forward to the yucca season each year.
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Oddly enough, Portland yards sometimes sport yucca plants. None reach toward the sky like yours, though, perhaps because the sky hasn't got a sun like yours. We had them in Kansas, too, where my students once proclaimed that there weren't any. I invited them to view the monster that grew on the corner. I tried to remove it at one point, and was caught up to my knees in mud when the Dean stopped at the stop sign and made a snarky comment.
ReplyDeleteYou are lucky the Dean made the comment or you would still be in the hole looking for the end of the tap root.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right. My memory is that my butt was sticking straight up in the air as he drove up and he leaned out the window and said "Attitude is everything!"
ReplyDelete