Yucca whipplei

[DesertZone]

Any pics of ther blooms?

[Tim Ingram]

Sorry all - I've been a bit overwhelmed taking pictures of the yucca every day that I haven't posted any to show how it's doing! This from a few days ago as the flowers are really beginning to open. In another week or ten days it should look really magnificent. I have a second plant in the sand bed behind it which is not flowering, but which actually has a much bigger rosette. If and when that flowers it should be even more amazing. This is obviously a plant you need to plant every year if you have space, to keep more regular flowering year by year. Are there any other yuccas at all comparable with this? It is more reminiscent of agaves and dasylirions.

[Weiser]

Impressive!!

The flowering stem is very stout. It looks a lot thicker than I see on my Y. elata.

Well done! 

[Hoy]

Tim, i think you have to use a ladder to admire the flowers! and the stem should support it

[Tim Ingram]

I'm afraid I might fall off onto the rosette of leaves Trond! This picture was taken a day or twoo later with the lovely Lithodora x intermedia in the foreground. Behind the yucca is something even taller, a glaucous leaved form of Ferula communis, still a little off flowering. After particularly mild winters in the past we used to also have giant echiums (pininiana) flowering with the fennel - a sort of Brobdingnagian front garden!

[RickR]

Such an extraordinary specimen, that yucca! 

I had to look up that Echium pininiana...
What happens in a not so mild winter for you?  And does it ever die back completely to the ground?

[McDonough]

Tim, your garden is sheer spectacle! Inspiring to see such fantastic plantings.

[Tim Ingram]

Thanks Mark, it's very nice of you to say so! I think few gardeners have such a passion for plants which is why it is so great to meet up with gardeners in the States. Our aim has always been to grow a very wide range of species, rarely seen in gardens (usually from wild collected seed), and then propagate these and make them available to visitors. I hope the day of the specialist nursery will return because it makes for far more interesting and diverse gardens.

[Tim Ingram]

A final update on Yucca whipplei - summer storms and rain have rather lashed the plant but these are a few pictures showing the development of the flowering panicle again and close ups of a flower raceme and of an individual flower. What a plant to grow in your garden!

[RickR]

Weather can sure prevent those prize photos that you would cherish forever, can't it...
But the ones you show here are superb!

Very curious how fat the filaments, especially below the anthers.  Any story about that?  Is this normal for the whole genus?

[Weiser]

Rick
 The fat filaments come standard in this genus. What I find kind of unique is the lacy crown of filaments around the edge of the stigma tip.

Here are close ups of some of the yuccas I grow.

Yucca angustissima ssp. kanabensis



Yucca elata



Yucca harrimaniae var. gilbertiana  



Yucca glauca ssp. glauca

[Tim Ingram]

John - very nice to see those comparisons. Do you know how common it is amongst yuccas to have strongly coloured flowers? There was that amazing example earlier on of Y. whipplei, and I know of Y. glauca from Claude Barr's book. I was also quite struck by the strong scent (of lemons) of the flowers - maybe more pronounced in the evening? I have a plant of Y. thompsoniana just producing a flower spike and will look at this more closely than I have before.

[Hoy]

The Yuccas are beautiful! Both the plant and the flowers

[Weiser]

I do not think it is very common to have strongly colored flowers on mature blossoms. My Yucca angustissima ssp. kanabensis and one of my Yucca glauca ssp. glauca have rose/purple flushes to the outside surface of the flowers when they first start to develop. But it quickly fades to cream as they gain size. The Y. elata does have deep brown stems on the inflorescence a nice contrast to the creamy white flowers.

I have never detected any fragrance to the blossoms of my Yuccas. That is interesting!

Below you may be able to discern the brown stems of the Yucca eleta that is if you can see between the flowers. The second photo is a closeup of the flowers and stem before they were fully open.
 

[DesertZone]

Love the yucca flower line up.  Nice pic everyone.