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Published Friday, December 18, 2020
Grow taller!
By Victoria Torley
Let’s see here. By now, you are all starting your “Tequila Garden” and planting things in hypertufa pots, so what’s next?
What is a succulent garden without height?
So, you want something tall in your succulent garden? How about the saguaro cactus? There’s a tall one for you. It can measure up to 12 meters (40 feet) although it takes a while to get there. You thought growing Tequila was bad? The saguaro can be as straight as a stick for 75-100 years before it even puts out an ‘arm’ and can live 150 years. Patience, please. If you see a saguaro with ‘arms’ in someone’s yard, it was probably dug up illegally from a protected area. Definite no-no.
Impatient? Don’t have 150 years to wait? The Cereus repandus or Peruvian apple cactus is a branching, shrub-like cactus that can grow to ten-meters (33-feet) tall and much more quickly than the saguaro. The record height for the apple cactus? Thirty-four meters which are110 feet, but that particular cactus was supported by a scaffold. You don’t want something with five-centimeter (two inches) needles falling over on you. The fruits of the apple cactus are edible and reportedly quite tasty.
Okay, okay, let’s get serious. You want a succulent with some height but you don’t want to get crazy about it. In that case, tree yuccas are a good choice.
The tree yuccas begin looking like a big bunch of grass-like vetiver but slowly grow a stem and begin to soar above the ground leaving behind long dried leaves still attached to the stem. A tree yucca can reach six meters – about 20 feet. Once the Yucca rostrate is off the ground on a stem, it gets a globe of leaves each about 2-feet (about 1/2 meter) long, sort of like a giant pom-pom and quite startling in appearance above lower-growing succulents.
Want some color from your yucca? The Yucca thompsoniana takes a while to grow – approximately 10 to 15 years – but it is worth the wait. The leaves, which are about 14-inches (1/4 meter) long have a yellow-green tint, especially at the tips.
Yuccas are great garden plants and fairly easy to grow. They are also easy to share as many reproduce by offsets – commonly called ‘pups’ – that appear around the base of the plant. Some of the local yuccas have seeds that start producing roots and shoots while still on the plant and I started many yuccas that way. Root division is another easy way to share your yucca.
Yes, they take some time, but tall succulents are fun to grow.
Plant for the Week
Well, here it is – a succulent in bloom.
The difference in heights made it hard to get it all in one picture, but I tried.
When you consider that the base is about one-meter (40 inches) tall, you can appreciate the height of the flower stalk. It never ceases to amaze me that the stalk manages to stay upright!
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Editor's note:
For more information on this article or about gardening, Ms. Victoria Torley, gardener columnist, can be reached at
victoriatorley1@gmail.com
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