| Product: |
General Garden |
| Date: |
27/08/00 (289 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Self sufficiency?, Trees for the price of a house plant, Local landmark
Disadvantages: Peeling off the leaves, Cuts my hands, Can't get through the rose arch
They were sitting together in my local Garden Centre in the ‘Indoor Houseplant Department’ Two four inch pots, each with a tiny Yucca plant, about nine inches high. Two for a fiver, was right up my pocket, so I bought them both and drove them home on the front seat of my small car. They thrived happily in my bathroom, but after one year, they’d grown to two feet and needed re-potting. It was a warm summer, and I had the notion that they were desert type plants, like cacti, so I put them outside for the fresh air, and then came the winter, and I forgot all about them and left them by the back door.
When I put my head outside for the first time in the Spring, I was rather surprised to see my two Yuccas were still there, having survived frosts, gales, snow and ice, were over three feet tall and needing bigger pots. They grew to five feet tall by the end of the Summer; too big to come back indoors, so I left them outside for another Winter, hoping they’d endure anything our climate threw at them.
What a shock when I looked at them again in the Spring. They were now over six feet tall, and looking rather magnificent. Bigger pots were out of the question, and I knew they would have to be put directly into the earth. Phew! A lot of digging that was. I chose a place either side of a Rose Arch at the base of three stone steps. My artistic eye told me that the contrast of the foliage of the Yuccas against the Ivy, Roses and Perennials would be pleasing, and so it has been. The story of my Yuccas began eight years ago. From nine inch high house plants, they are now twenty five feet tall, huge, fully grown Spanish Bayonet Yuccas, native to North America, the West Indies, and now my cottage garden in Bridport, West Dorset!
Twice a year I put my heavy duty, specially purchased gardening gloves on, as the foliage has sharp edges, and strip of the drooping lower leaves from the thick trunk, so we can walk through the Rose-Arch. I
contemplate weaving a basket with them, or perhaps a hammock, for the lie down I always need after this strenuous job. Not such a mad idea really, as people split and chewed the fibrous leaves to make sisal hemp rope, matting, sandals, baskets, and clothe. The leaves also thatched house roofs and sun shades.
The scientific name for the Spanish Bayonet is "aloifolia" derived from the Latin for "with aloe leaves” My Yuccas have thick, sword-shaped, narrow evergreen leaves, growing in a clump and sending up a edible spikes with ornamental white flowers. The succulent buds and young flower stalks were prized as a vegetable, and the ripe fruits roasted and dried. The name "soap tree yucca" refers to the gentle soap obtained from the pounded or boiled roots of all yuccas, of which there are seven hundred varieties. Mine is definitely a Spanish Bayonet.
So just a minute! Am I on the way to being self sufficient? Me and my two Yuccas? I can eat the fruits, roof my cottage with the thatch, weave mats, baskets and sandals and sell them in the local market, and even produce a herbal cure. I’ve just read this in Dooyoo about a certain vegetarian dog food:
“Blah blah dog food formulated and manufactured gluten free with the aim of maximising digestibility. Yucca is added to reduce breath and stool odour”
It looks like I’m on to something here, as I’m sure that will work for humans too! What do you think?
I have been told a variety of stories, relating to me, that once my Yuccas have flowered, which they did when they were five years old, they would die. This interested me, as I really didn’t want to lose them, because they’d leave a very big gap in my garden, and they are very much a feature in the neighbourhood, almost a landmark. You know the kinda thing “ Past the Boot Inn, then the cottage with the huge Yuccas, and it’s on your left” I
did some research and found this information.
The way a yucca flower is built, it can’t be pollinated in the ordinary way, and it depends on the special service of a yucca moth to do it. When the moth comes to a yucca flower it gathers up a ball of pollen, and then goes to the ovary of the female part of the flower where it lays some eggs. It then climbs to the top of the female part of the flower and places the ball of pollen on the stigma where it needs to be for pollination to occur. Now that it is pollinated, the flower can produce seeds in its ovary. The yucca moth caterpillars eat some of the seeds, but many are left over to produce new yucca plants. Because the yucca moth caterpillars eat only yucca seeds, and the yucca plant is pollinated only by yucca moths, both the moths and the plant depend on each other for survival.
Now, if my Yuccas have survived with new flowers every year, do I have Yucca moths in my garden? I ask this because, one of my Yuccas has had a baby. It’s growing two feet away from its mother Yucca, three feet tall and growing very fast. I wonder if this is an offshoot, or I do have Yucca moths? Are those caterpillars I see Yucca caterpillars? I have no way of knowing.
The Yucca is New Mexico’s state flower, and now it’s mine. The contrast of the stiff leaved, evergreen shrub against the softness of the foliage of a very English cottage garden is imposing. The stark ornamental features of the Spanish Bayonet Yucca would look equally effective in a minimalist designer garden. I believe my two houseplants were mis-sold and I have got more than my moneys worth with these two elegant, striking, exotic trees and their new baby.
It’s such a hot afternoon, so I’m off now to tie my Yucca leaf hammock to the sturdy Yucca tree trunks to have a Mexican style siesta , wearing my hand woven Yucca leaf hat, Yucca leaf skirt and Yucca sandals, then have a shower using my Yucca s
oap, and we’ve roasted Yucca fruits for supper! All I need now is to discover how make the hemp from the fibrous Yucca leaves into hand rolling tobacco and syphon the Yucca sap from the bark to make a full bodied Yucca wine!
Summary:
|
|
