Cool post 8)
But don't worry about the j-trees in the wild, they still will be there for many, many years. They grow in places like Phoenix AZ. Wich is much warmer than there native habitat and they do well there. 😀
Yuccas are very adaptable and should be planted into more areas of the west. I belive they add a touch of interest in the exescape. This will be more of a trend seen across western US in the future.

PS The news here did an article about the single leaf pinyon pine possibly dying off here in Idaho if the temp rises 2-3 deg f. I find that very hard to belive, because it is found here in the most northern part of its range. This is a zone 4-5 area, but this plant grows in the south in places as warm a zone 8 or warmer. That is temps of as much as 20 deg f warmer than here in Idaho? There is no funding for research to show if things will be ok? Just dooms day news. IMO 🙂

Duncan I really doubt we will see very many of the Joshua trees here in the Okanagan Valley. I sure people would plant them if they even new they would survive here. "I`m sounding like a broken record every spring". I go to the nuseries with literature in hand about how cold hardy Joshuas, Y. rostrata and many other Yuccas that will grow here. The frustrating part is they look in there buying manual and it tells them they are a zone 8 plant. I had one manager tell me we were a zone 4b. I lost it 😡 ! and told him what a diservice he was doing for his customers and his boss.

John

It's very frustrating.

By the way today I saw a beautful rostrata with a good five feet of trunk at Cedar Rim Nursery in Langley. Very nice. They had an amazing Yucca aloifolia variegated that I wondered about surviving in Penticton.

I saw many small rostratas at Southlands in Vancouver but they were beautiful. Some bluer than others.

When our local nursery brought in Yucca rostrata two years ago most customers ignored them and most were not sold. 😥 I hope the ones that sold will live and cause a demand to happen.

The nursery staff and customers need to be educated and it's hard to do and if there is any chance of all of winter damage let alone death.... notwithstanding that the same thing could happen to their precious junipers, etc (I do like junipers, most junipers, and that's just an example) than what can one do.

I always try to push things like crape myrtles too which always come back from the roots for me and my Acoma is flowering right now.

My Musa basjoos always come back but are still less than a foot tall and have never been like they were the first year I planted them.

I should have bought that Yucca recurvifolia I saw today and plunked it in my front yard. Dang.

Duncan, sorry, I don't know how I missed your excellent post!!!

Very interesting reading.
That second pic/link (from Bennyskaktus)...I've drooled over that internet picture many times! 8)

Reading your link about the joshuas, instead of the park rangers lamenting why the joshuas around them are dead and dying, why don't the rangers collect 20 pounds of seed (in the absence of the sloths...) and drive to the steppes nearby and scatter seed over a 50 acre area? (Duh!)

The joshua in that Salt Lake city pic is unbloody-believable!

I admire your optimism.
Then I think back to last winter...the coldest and longest, in my memory anyway.
Even my y.filamentosa which are normally bulletproof got set back, flowering a month late this year.

John, agree!
Yesterday I went in to a reputable big nursery and asked for "Palm Special Fertilizer". They recommended 20-20-20. I patiently told them that ratio should be approx. 3-1-4+3 + Mn + trace.
They looked at me like I was from Mars.
I asked them "so what do YOU use on your gorgeous palms here?"
Are you sitting down for the reply?
"We use 20-20-20 if they don't sell right away, mostly they come in looking good."

The manager said to me: "If we stocked that fertilizer, you'd be the only person who'd buy it."

And bricks-n-mortar shops people complain about shopping online!
Sigh.

Heaven knows B.C. Okanagan's summer temps resemble the southern U.S. desert.
It's just our bloody winters plants have to make it through.
I hope this el Nino lasts!

Barb

I like this topic! I've always believed that many of the Southwest Yuccas are VERY conservatively 'ranked' according to USDA zone. I mean, hell, I had a Y. brevifolia survive here for 4 years with moisture protection. It only perished when I transplanted it to a new garden and left it to fend for itself. The thing took -32C as a first year seedling. With NO snow cover. I wouldn't say that it was happy, but it did survive and grow.

Some others have been rather disappointing. For instance Y. thompsoniana died in 1 winter even with mositure protection. I think it was more to do with the fact that the thing tried to grow all winter (it got all whitish in the middle) then with the actual low temperatures. Another disappointment is some of the non-trunking Western types. Yucca harrimaniae survives here but isn't happy (might be happier in a dry climate), same with Y. baccata (which sort of trunks, depeneding mostly on altitude) and Y. nana.

The point is, these plants can take a lot of cold, as long as they're dry. I'm really suprized there aren't more examples of trunking Yucca in the Okanagon, it just makes sense to grow them there!

Great pics!
Love the J-tree in SLC!
Interesting reading on J-trees and the sloth.

As long as we have DZ and his J-trees they will never vanish-keep up the good work

Barb welcome to nursery ignorance . We have broached this subject many a time. If you want palm food order it from Vancouver "cheap shipping" or better yet stop by and I have some"Lilly Miller palm tree food 10-5-08 "you can have and maybe a couple of Sabal louisiana or Sabal minor? Paul I was driving down the street and seen a couple 4 ft tall Y. rostrata. I also know of another house that has many yuccas growing for a few years now. Time to get off my ass and get some pics and permission from one of the owners to take a couple of the backyard.

John

Hi All,

Thanks for the responses to the post. There are certainly some cool examples out there already that defy these plant's very conservative USDA zone classifications. Yuccas are very intriguing for me in Calgary. It's super dry here and filimentosa and, especially, glauca are already proven here. So, I'm hoping to have success with some of more exotic zone 5-6ers-rostrata, bacatta, elata etc.- in protected micros, with some protection through the worst of our winter. Maybe a babied brevifolia or two, also. The real downside here, is a lack of summer heat.

Barb, agreed-time to get an active planting campaign going for the JT. Keep us posted on your Trachy this winter!

John, would love to see those four-foot rostratas and some picks of your plants too!

Paul, that's so cool with your brevifoila- -32!? I've got some seedlings right now that I'm hoping to try outside in a couple of years.

hardyjim, nice weather you guys are having down there!

Happy zone pushing all!

Duncan

get off my ass and get some pics

hopefully before the snow hits 😆 😆

Just noticed my little Joshua has TWO inches of clear trunk.

Having only one, I don't want to risk this guy outdoors.
Barb

Barb once they get trunk they really start to take off.

John

Nice J-tree Barb. 8)

Hi Barb,

Looks great! How long did yours take to show some trunk? I've got some 7-8 month seedlings going now. Right now, they are very similar in appearance to yours, minus the trunk. I'm wondering how long it will take for these plants to take on a real JT appearance, i.e. where the plant essentially starts to look like the branch of a specimen you see in the Mohave Desert, for example. Like this picture, for example:

Thanks!

Duncan

Just noticed my little Joshua has TWO inches of clear trunk.

Having only one, I don't want to risk this guy outdoors.
Barb

Barb, are you sure that is a J-tree. 😐 If it is it might be a cross with elata?

Just a guess, I have been wrong many times. 😉

Hi All,

I purchased my brevifolia (what I hope are brevifolia, anyway) seeds through U.S. sellers on eBay. I'm starting to wonder if my seedlings are pure brevifolia, or brevifolia at all. They are definetly yuccas of some sort, but on some plants the leaves strike me as being too long and flaccid to be brevifolia. Maybe it's too early to tell? What do you guys think?

Thanks!

Duncan