Gardening Magazine

Irritating Plant of the Month - the Yukka

By Ozhene @papaver

Irritating Plant of the Month - the Yukka

For avoidance of doubt, this is the 'before' picture....

Until this Spring when it suddenly went a bit dead on me. This was very annoying. Every time I looked it was a bit more pale, a bit more wambley (techincal term) and just looking on death's door. It looked distinctly like it was rotting away. By the time it got to mid-April I had little hope of it surviving so I dug it up.

Irritating Plant of the Month - the Yukka

In my head all I could hear was it whining 'I'm dying , I'm dying' in a voice like the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz (yes I know she melted, but the plant is not). As I got it out of the ground I noticed there was just one tiny spike of life left. I potted it up and waited to see if it would recover.

Irritating Plant of the Month - the Yukka

I am not known for my patience. The plant, somewhat irritatingly, decided to carry on dying. In June I could not even see the tiny little spike so I decided to chuck it. If thine plant offends thee, chuck it out! I tipped it out of the pot and lo and behold there was a lovely spike of growth coming from quite a long way down. The upper tuber (is it a tuber?) felt soft and rotten but underneath seemed rather healthy. I removed the softer upper bits and repotted the plant.

Irritating Plant of the Month - the Yukka

Just a few days later and voila!

Irritating Plant of the Month - the Yukka

Ten more days and voila voila!!

Irritating Plant of the Month - the Yukka

The Yukka has now reached the stage of a few leaves. The compost needs refreshing and I will be feeding it to get more of its original colour hopefully to return. It is a bit irritating that it is this pale and fairly uninteresting colour, but I am hopeful that it will recover to its former glory.

If you want me I'll be skipping down the garden skipping along a yellow brick road............ that looks not unlike crazy paving from a distance....


Back to Featured Articles on Logo Paperblog