The genus Yucca includes about fifty species. Yuccas are grown as houseplants, but they like to be placed outdoors as long as they can get full sunlight. We love them exotic look and more their sculptural flowers in the shape of bells. The hardiest species can withstand down to -20°C without difficulty, and all Yuccas are plants with no particular needs, ideal for structuring rocky massifs. You might as well know when and how to take a Yucca cutting to multiply this easy-to-live and spectacular flowering plant. Let’s do a check in.
Ideal period for cutting a yucca and cutting method
This is in spring that it is preferable to carry out the cuttings of a Yucca, when the recovery of the vegetation has started.
In a single intervention, we achieve a head cutting and one or several stem cuttings. This poses no particular difficulty and success is almost guaranteed if the following steps are followed.
- Select a vigorous stipe (false trunk) or a beautiful branching,
- Cut with a saw 30 cm above ground level. The mother plant must therefore retain a part of the stipe which will produce new side shoots.
- Saw the removed part in several sections so as to have:
- a head cutting (upper sections) of 50 cm,
- several trunk cuttings of about 15 cm each.
- Make a pencil mark on each cutting so that you can distinguish the top from the bottom when potting.
- Set the cuttings aside and allow a drying time before applying a putty.
It is advisable to move on to the preparation of the pots, knowing that it takes a container with a pierced bottom per section.
- Place a few shards of terracotta at the bottom of each pot to prevent the substrate from leaking through the hole.
- Place a bed of clay pebbles or gravel in the pots to ensure a bon drainage.
- Fill the pots with a substrate suitable for yucca cuttings.
- Make a hole in the center of the substrate and plant each section in it, taking care to respect the direction indicated beforehand in pencil.
- Tamp.
- Either 1/3 sand, 1/3 compost and 1/3 vermiculite,
- Either 50% coarse river sand and 50% leaf mold,
- Or 100% leaf mold.
All that remains is to install the Yucca cuttings in an extremely luminous and warm enough.
Successful yucca cuttings for sure
It is very important to let the sections dry for a few hours to one or two days and then to coat their ends with a healing balm or of mastic agricoleor failing that, tar. This allows to protect pruning wounds and to limit the risk of rotting.
About the choice of substrate, it is essential to offer your Yucca cuttings a nutritious mixture. Three solutions are available to the gardener, namely:
We advise to wait a few days after planting to carry out the first watering. Thus, the healing balm has time to dry perfectly. If you are in too much of a hurry to water, you simply risk exposing your Yuccas to the risk of rot.
Finally, when each section has formed a few leaves, it must be repotted in a soil for mediterranean plants and in a slightly larger pot than the previous one, always with a hole in the bottom so that the roots of the young Yuccas do not bathe in water. But it is also possible to transplant them in the ground, in a corner of the garden that is well suited to them, namely warm and bright. And to give the Yucca cuttings a boost, a few liquid fertilizer inputs are welcome.