Just something I’ve observed about Yucca rostrata. Whether it’s MCM, Spanish Revival, Craftsman bungalow, Streamline Moderne, you can’t go wrong with this yucca, native to Texas and Mexico. Seen here standing tall amid a privacy buffer of crassula and foxtail agaves between two properties in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Wisely, the architecture is left to shine and not obscured by heavy foundation planting. There’s a tracery of vine, cycads, and that limbed-up shrub I couldn’t ID from the sidewalk.
Most of the houses on this street are Spanish/Mission Revival with the occasional chateauesque property as seen looming in the background.
I took these photos back in April. Along with the yucca in bloom, you can see star jasmine in bloom just about mid-photo. So this is one example of what a “spring garden” looks like in Los Angeles, with succulents, cycads, yuccas, agaves, dymondia, decomposed granite mulch.
In truth, this is a dry garden that mostly ignores the seasons and will change very little throughout the year. It will effortlessly shrug off this week’s temperatures in the high 90s. In this neighborhood back in April, there were also front gardens in profuse spring bloom from California natives and dry garden exotics, and I’m a fan of those as well — especially if they sneak in a Yucca rostrata or two or three…because they really do go with everything.
“Effortlessly” shrugging off this week’s time temperatures sounds wonderful to me as the temperature inside my home office nears 90F. (We’re unable to run the house’s AC because half the house is mostly open to the elements.) Yucca rostrata seems surprisingly difficult to find in local nurseries here but maybe I don’t shop the right places, or simply turn a blind eye to the huge specimens with eye-popping price tags. I finally managed to get hold of a teeny 4-inch plant via Annie’s but it’s going to be a long time before it makes a statement of any kind.
Kris, same here. I’ve got two that won’t trunk for years. They do seem to grow faster in climates with more moisture, like Austin and the PNW.
Fantastic. I love those bobble heads of rostrata peeking over the hedge. And yes, Y. rostrata grows pretty quickly in Austin’s wetter climate.