Not all Y. gluacas will trunk. But as long as the top does not die after flowering any type of yucca should grow some kind of trunk.
I am going to try to speed up growth of my trunking filamentosa by removing the flower stock before it grows, this might stop the top growth from dieng back? I will soon find out.

I don't think you can prevent the death of that particular rosette of leaves by cutting off the flower stem before it blooms. Once the yucca sends up the bloom stalk, the death process of that part of yucca has started. I'm not even sure the yucca will grow any faster by doing that.

Not all yuccas trunk either. Yucca flacida, rupicola, reverchonii, most filamentosas, are just a few that don't form trunks. There's more, but I can't remember off the top of my head without looking them up.

That is right...not all yuccas form trunks, but if you could keep the tops growing any yucca would grow a trunk.
And yes I have removed the flower stock as it was coming up and the top kept growing! It tried to push up a flower stock twice, but then grow out leaves the third time. I have only done this with one yucca filamentosa, but will try again this year with a couple of other yucca filamentosas. And yes that yucca did grow faster by doing that!!!! or at least taller!
I have a yucca filamentosa that come from a plant that was over 30 years old and never grow a trunk at all, until I started to train it to grow a trunk, and yes it is posable to force a non trunking yucca to grow a trunk!!! I have done it and will keep it growing taller every year, and this year will try removing it's flower stocks as they push up. I hope it works as good as it did for it's clone. So this year I will find out if it works for the rest of the filamentosas? 😀

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That's awesome Aaron. 😀 I didn't know you could do that. So how old is that filamentosa in the picture? That's a pretty cool looking trunk for a filamentosa. 😀

Regards,
Jay

Well it is a sucker from an older plant. It did what all filamentosas do, it kept spreeding all over the place. Then after a trip to the southwest I thought I would try to make it grow up instead of out, and now that I kind of know what I am doing it seems to be working. To my suprize they trunk faster then I thought they would! It took three years of trianing to get it to ths point. Before that it was just like all other filamentosas, just kept spreeding out for about 6years or so.
What I did was - picked the biggest plant out of the bunch and then removed all other suckers, then keep only a desired amout of tops, I chose to let three tops grow, after the top flowers, leave only one start to take its place ( pick the highest new start and remove all the others) if the top starts to regrow remove all other lower starts.
I hope this helps? It also seems to make a plant with much bigger leaves. I guess because its energy is feeding fewer tops?

Aaron, I really don't question your success with your technique on getting your yucca to grow a trunk, but real filamentosas do not trunk. I suspect what you have is some sort of hybrid of filamentosa with some sort of trunking type yucca. The reason I say this is because I had a similar yucca that had all the characteristics of a filamentosa, especially the curling fibers off the leaf margins. I too was able to get a small trunk going after many years of pulling little side suckers out of the ground and forcing all the energy into a few heads of leaves. It did start to form a low, prostrate trunk over time. But what convinced me it was a mix of something else with filamentosa was when I compared it to a real filamentosa. The leaf structure was different as well as the way it grew. Whatever it is you have, good luck with it. I can't access your photo because of a filter in my internet access.

Hi Jim.
I hear what you are saying, but it is just a normal filamentosa. The same suckers this one came from are still just a couple of inches off the ground (and are all aleast 10 years old), exept a few that I have started to mess with. After finding that it is not that hard to force them to grow a trunk I have started to do the same with a few of the others.
You are right filamentosas do not grow trunks on their own, but with help it can happen. 😀

I guess it is time to post something about yucca glauca here 😆 Here is a pic of my y.gluaca, it is over 10 years, and it had over 20 flower stalks on it this year.

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Nice. 😀

sept 2010

Pic from summer 2010
I don't know if I posted this earlier or not?

Man, that's beautiful, Aaron.
Think yours and Jim's are the only glauca I've ever seen in flower.

I read the topic back to 2005 (wow, you old timer, you 8) ) and I agree with some work, almost any plant will trunk.
Lots of work since filamentosa have a one-track mind to suckering!

BTW, great rock wall...did you build it?
Great microclimate for the yuccas, providing considerable protection from cold winter winds.
Barb

great looking Yucca! Love the blooms. Do you know the location where that type was collected? The leaves seem somewhat wide and the blooms remind me of having some harrimaniae traits too. Great form!!