The Yucca Lull and I get a nose piercing

Cruella (my wife) is still away I haven’t really heard from her yet but she FaceTimes the chickens on a daily basis and they tell her how I am getting on. They pass on her orders, but I just ignore them as they are in Chickenese and I refuse to learn it. Mainly I am just getting ready to gear up for the Summer. I have decided to name the period in gardening between Spring and Summer the Yucca Lull.

The Yucca Lull is that period when nothing has really started growing to any great extent, and you are looking round for things to do. This is the ideal time to look at those plants and areas of your garden that you tend to overlook as you are concentrating on the other prettier and more interesting areas. Yuccas are a prime example of a plant that is a structural staple throughout Spain, but in most cases is left to become a tangled dangerous mess. Anyway, on with the gardening.

27th March 2023. Things I have been doing lately:

Tidying up Yuccas. A tidy open Yucca provides architectural structure in a garden and allow other plants to be shown at their best. However, left to their own devices they will become a huge tangled, dark mess of interlocking blades that can easily take out an eye. Why not use this period to get out there and reshape your Yuccas so that they are better integrated into your garden. I have a number of Yuccas throughout the garden from medium sized to very big. The two photos below show the worst examples of my untidy Yuccas. Click on each photo for a larger view.

From these photos you can see that there are two main problems. Firstly, I have left the dead leaves on the plants for a number of years and they have died, dried and gone brown giving a horrible look to the plant. Secondly, you can see lots of over crowding where stems have grown willy nilly (to my US readers this is an old English saying for higgledy piggledy; I believe in plain language!). The first thing you need to do before tackling your Yucca, is to get protected. Yuccas can be very vicious, so you will need a hat, gloves and eye protection. The photo below shows me ready for action.

Start by peeling back all the dead leaves. As these grow in a rotational pattern you need to start at the bottom of the stem and work up systematically peeling each leaf off in turn by pulling it sharply downwards. The photo below shows the action, followed by a photo of one of the over 20 trugs I filled. Click on each photo for a larger view.

Once you have cleared the stems of dead leaves, then it is time to cut out unwanted branches. You are aiming for an open structure you can see through with the removal of all cross branches. The best tool for this is a simple bow saw as this soon rips through the Yucca stems. The photo below shows my trusty saw ready for action followed by the results of vigorous thinning out. Click on each photo for a larger view.

Finally here are some photos of my new freshly reinvigorated Yuccas once more being a source of pride within the garden. Click on each photo for a larger view.

I am afraid to say that despite my best efforts at self protection the vicious Yuccas gave me a painful nose piercing. When I telephoned Cruella (my wife) to tell her about this disaster she suggested I put a ring through it and make myself look modern. However, I refused as I suspect she would try and lead me around with it. The photo below shows the damage.