Rancho Tissue Technologies expands yucca selection

Rancho Tissue Technologies expanded its tissue-cultured yucca lineup to a total of 10 varieties.

“We are excited to be offering these unique and colorful yuccas to the industry,” said founder and owner Heather Hunter May. “All are produced in our state-of-the-art tissue culture lab to ensure true-to-type coloration, consistent form and disease-free planting stock.”

The collection includes:

© Photos courtesy of Rancho Tissue Technologies

Yucca rostrata 'Rancho Blue' is an exclusive Rancho Tissue selection chosen for its vivid powder-blue foliage. With a compact habit in youth and a statuesque silhouette as it matures, it develops into a single-trunked specimen reaching 12 to 15 feet tall, topped by a dense, symmetrical crown of slightly stiff blue leaves with light yellow margins. It's cold-hardy to 10 °F once established, provided soil is well-drained. 'Rancho Blue' is well-suited for architectural planting, modern landscapes and xeriscape design. 

Yucca rostrata 'Sapphire Skies' was chosen for its consistently vibrant, powdery blue-gray foliage, which radiates from a tight central rosette atop a slender trunk that slowly develops over time. Each leaf is narrow and finely tapered. ‘Sapphire Skies’ has a softer presence than other yuccas and is well-suited for design-focused xeriscapes, modern gardens or container planting. With age, it forms a single trunk 10 to 15 feet tall, eventually producing creamy white flowers on tall spikes in early summer. It's cold-hardy to 10 °F once established, provided soil is well-drained.

Yucca pallida ‘Blue Powder’ is a deer resistant selection that forms short 20-inch tall by 30-inch wide single rosettes. The wide and slightly twisted powder-blue leaves with very pale yellow edging are somewhat stiff but not stiff as Yucca torreyi. When mature, its clumps are topped with 3-foot tall spikes holding white bell-shaped flowers, a hummingbird favorite. It's hardy to 0 °F once established.

For the complete collection from Rancho Tissue Technologies — which was established in 1987 and has an environmentally controlled laboratory and 40,000-square-foot greenhouse designed to produce up to 4 million plants per year — visit ranchotissue.com/product-category/yucca.