Tutorial with instructions, tips and tricks

The best time and material requirements

You can basically prune your yucca palm all year round. Spring is ideal for pruning. In this phase the juice pressure is at a low level, so that the exotic succulents hardly bleed from the inevitable cuts. With the following combination of careful choice of dates, the right tools and practical accessories, cutting care becomes one Palm lily to the successful project:

• The best time is from the beginning of April to mid-May
• Cutting tool for shoots up to 2 cm in diameter: Bypass secateurs
• Shoots up to 3.5 cm: tree or Loppers with bypass mechanism
• Shoots and trunks from 4 cm in diameter: Folding saw(€ 17.68 at Amazon *) or sharp bread knife
• Small knife with a straight blade for smoothing cuts
• Rag and alcohol
• Robust gloves
• Tree wax,(€ 18.62 at Amazon *) Charcoal ash or Rock flour(€ 12.46 at Amazon *) for wound treatment

Before starting the cutting work, please clean the scissor blades and saw blades carefully with hot water. Then disinfect all cutting edges with spirit or Sagrotan. The best pruning care is doomed to failure if unclean tools are used. Numerous pathogens and pests use scissors, saws and knives as a welcome means of transport in the pathways of yucca palms and other indoor plants.

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Sleeping eyes guarantee cutting success

Cut the yucca palm into shape

If the yucca palm bumps its pretty tuft of leaves on the ceiling or gestures wildly with thin, crackled arms, a shape cut solves the problem. At least now, carpenters have come to appreciate the good-natured cut tolerance that characterizes the palm-like agave plant. How to Properly Cut a Yucca Palm:

• Cut the shoots and stems back to the desired length
• Smooth cuts with the knife blade
• Dust small wounds with charcoal ash or rock flour
• Treat larger wounds with tree wax

Wounds the size of a 2 euro coin are a case for treatment with Tree wax. Coat the wound edges thinly with the wound closure. Inside, the cut should only be dusted with charcoal ash. In practice it has been proven that a complete seal impairs wound healing and promotes decay.

Remove dead leaves

The trademarks of a yucca palm are green or creamy white edged sword leaves that gather to form decorative bowls. The position of a yucca leaf gives a clear indication of its age. Inside a tuft of leaves are the youngest leaves with stiffly upright growth. The older leaves, up to 100 centimeters long, frame the young foliage and hang elegantly overhead.

Over time, the leaves pull in at the lower end of a crown and fall off. This process can take several weeks and affect the beauty of a palm lily. Furthermore, it can happen that a young sword blade dries up prematurely in the crop center. In both cases, scissors, saws or knives stay in the drawer. How to handle dead leaves on a yucca palm:

• Wait until a yucca leaf has completely yellowed and dried up
• Manually pull the leaves downwards at the outer edge of the crown
• Grasp the leaves in the center of the tuft with your fingers and twist them out

The soft texture of palm lily leaves belies the fact that the leaf edges can be very sharp and the leaf tips needle-sharp. Please wear protective gloves when removing dead leaves. It is important to note that you should be patient with the measure until a leaf has died. In the transition phase, valuable reserve substances are shifted from the leaves to the roots so that new leaves can sprout in the upper crown area.

Digression

Do not shorten the yucca leaves

Cut off dead flowers

Under ideal conditions, a yucca palm feels encouraged to give its gardener a splendid bloom. The bright, warm winter garden offers the best prospects for the floral spectacle from the tenth year of standing. The majestic flower panicles are reminiscent of oversized ones lily of the valley and attract everyone's attention.

After the end of the summer flowering period, the withered inflorescences become an aesthetic disruption. Since the yucca moth is not native to our regions as the main pollinator, there is little chance of seed pods forming anyway. Take a saw or pruning shears and cut off the faded panicle at the base.

frequently asked Questions

Are yucca palms hardy?

Popular yucca palms for living spaces are not hardy. The picturesque Yucca elephantipes presents its magnificent leaf heads made of impressive sword leaves as long as normal room temperatures are allowed. The same applies to exotic beauties such as the yucca aloifolia, also known as the gray palm lily. At temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius, most of the yuccas are threatened in their existence. An exception applies to garden yuccas, such as the filamentous palm lily (Yucca filamentosa), which can survive a Central European winter outside as long as it is protected from moisture.

What to do with the clippings of a yucca palm

In each branch there is the potential for a new, magnificent yucca palm. The clippings are therefore perfect for propagation by cuttings. An ideal cutting is 20 to 30 cm long, healthy and leafless. It is important for rooting that you plant a yucca cutting the right way round. Mark the top end with string or felt-tip pen. Confusing polarity will prevent a cutting from taking root. In the warm, bright window seat, it takes an average of one month for the first tender shoots to appear.

My yucca palm has very long, extremely thin shoots with few leaves. What to do?

Lack of light causes a yucca palm to form long, thin shoots, which are also known as horny shoots or fear instincts. In order for the palm lily to find its way back to an elegant, compact growth, proceed in two stages. First of all, the location should be changed to a bright to sunny place. Then cut all the excessively long shoots back to short stubs.

Another miniature plant grows at the bottom of my yucca palm. How do I deal with it?

It is an offshoot, also known as a Kindel. In this way, an older yucca palm provides for offspring in good time. You should not miss this opportunity and use the Kindel for reproduction. Wait until the mini yucca has at least five leaves. Then cut the offshoot and pot it in a small bucket Potting soil. In the bright, not full sun window seat, keep the substrate constantly slightly moist.

When cutting my yucca palm I failed to mark the polarity. Can I no longer use the clippings as cuttings?

If the original direction of growth of yucca shoots can no longer be traced, you can still use the clippings for propagation. You can do this by transplanting the cuttings. Fill a sufficiently large nursery pot with lean soil. Place a stem segment on top and press half to two thirds of it into the substrate. Root strands then sprout from the sleeping eyes on the underside. On the opposite side, new shoots sprout from dormant buds below the bark.

The 3 most common mistakes

The robust cut tolerance of yucca palms irons out most of the beginner's mistakes. Nevertheless, the following three cutting errors have serious consequences that can spoil your enjoyment of your palm lily for a long time.

Tips

Yucca palms are good for many a horticultural surprise. Hobby gardeners are astonished to discover that there are more than 50 species hardy succulents are located. A prime example is the filamentous palm lily (Yucca filamentosa), which can withstand up to -20 degrees Celsius and snow pressure in the bed without complaint.