{"id":2095,"date":"2006-04-28T17:42:19","date_gmt":"2006-04-28T22:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.168.1.5\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=2095"},"modified":"2016-11-16T01:41:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T01:41:56","slug":"red-yucc-hesperaloe-parviflora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/plant-highlights\/red-yucc-hesperaloe-parviflora\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like that the Texas Aggies classify red yucca<\/a> as an “evergreen shrub”. Unless you garden in the American southwest, you probably think of shrubs as multi-stemmed woody perennials, such as roses, azaleas, yew, box, and lilacs. But down here in Texas, we have to use a bit of imagination. Truth be told, red yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora<\/i>) isn’t a yucca either.<\/p>\n

The last few years red yucca has become very popular in commercial landscapes and median plantings around Austin. They really strut their stuff in a mass planting where the pale red flowers seem to float like a cloud of butterflies above the green spikey base.<\/p>\n

I don’t have room for a mass planting in my garden, so I found it a bit of a challenge to site a single plant among the cottage garden plants. I stuck it in a sunny spot between the ‘Penelope’ and ‘Prosperity’ roses and I don’t think it quite works. However, I’m happy that after four years, it has finally decided to bloom.<\/p>\n

\"photo:
A single red yucca almost disappears into the foliage of more traditional shrubbery. It works better in a starker landscape or when planted en masse.<\/i><\/p>\n

Red yucca is reputed to attract both butterflies and hummingbirds, but I haven’t noticed either around my plants. [2008-06-13. Saw a hummingbird on the red yucca this morning.<\/i>]<\/p>\n

I think red yucca is better described as heat-tolerant, than drought-tolerant. High temperatures don’t seem to bother it, but in Austin it requires some supplemental water during the worst of summer to thrive. Just be sure that it has good drainage. (One thing to remember about so-called drought-tolerant plants…just because a plant can tolerate drought conditions doesn’t mean they perform their best. It’s more of a comparitive term. A red yucca can get buy with a lot less water than a hosta. But it doesn’t mean you can just plant a red yucca and forget about it.)<\/p>\n

Red yucca forms clumps and you can divide them in the winter. I found it easy to start red yucca from seed, too. However, it grows very slowly. The seedlings I started two years ago are only six inches tall.
\n<\/p>\n

Zanthan Gardens History<\/h4>\n

Tuesday June 4, 2002
\nPlant 1-gallon red yucca. (Home Depot).<\/p>\n

April 15, 2006
\nFirst flower, ever, on the red yucca.<\/p>\n

Friday June 13, 2008
\nMy lucky day. I see a hummingbird sucking nectar from the red yucca.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"photo:
Tall spikes of small pale red flowers shoot up from a clump of red yucca.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[234,510,511],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2095"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4987,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions\/4987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}