Color Guard Yucca - 72-Cell Plug Tray

Color Guard is a bright, easy yucca with creamy yellow leaves edged in green that keep their color all year. In the cool months of fall and winter the pale centers pick up rosy tones, so it adds interest when most of the garden is bare.

In early to midsummer, sturdy stalks rise 3 to 4 feet from the center and hang with creamy white bells. It thrives on heat, drought and poor soil, holds up to deer and rabbits, and makes a strong accent in dry beds and gravel gardens.

What it looks like

Stiff, sword-shaped leaves about 1 to 1½ inches wide radiate upward and outward from a central crown. Each leaf has a broad creamy yellow center stripe and green margins, and thin curly white threads peel from the edges; in cold weather the yellow areas blush rose-pink. The foliage clump is about 2 to 3 feet tall and 18 to 24 inches wide. In summer a thick stalk rises 3 to 4 feet above the leaves carrying dozens of nodding, bell-shaped creamy white flowers 2 to 3 inches long. At peak bloom the white bells hang in a loose, branched column above the bright yellow rosette.

Growing it with lavender

It thrives in the same full sun and lean, dry soil as lavender, and its upright yellow-and-green swords make a bold contrast to soft, mounded lavender all year.

Care

Plant in full sun to part shade in well-drained, even poor or sandy soil; it is very drought tolerant once established. Hardy in zones 4 to 10. Cut the flower stalk off at the base after bloom and pull away old brown leaves in spring.

At a glance

• Botanical name: Yucca filamentosa
• Flower color: Creamy white
• Foliage: Creamy yellow center with green edges, rose tint in winter
• Growth habit: Upright rosette
• Mature size: 24–36 in tall × 18–24 in wide
• USDA hardiness zones: 4–10
• Light: full sun, part sun to part shade
• Bloom start: Late-June
• Peak bloom: Mid-July
• Bloom pattern: Single Flush
• Deer resistance: Resistant
• Pollinator value: Fair

Sizes and shipping

One full 72-cell plug tray: 72 young starter plugs of this variety (cells about 1⅓ in. wide × 2½ in. deep), rooted and ready to pot up into quarts or gallons. Best for growers and nurseries. Potted plants and plug trays ship during our live-plant seasons, March 1–May 31 and October 1–November 30; June through September is local pickup only. Plugs, potted plants and trays do not ship to AZ, CA, HI, ID, NV, OR, UT or WA.