Spanish Bayonet

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Like Yucca aloifolia, Spanish Bayonet, the plant called Spanish Dagger, Yucca gloriosa, also is native only to the lower southeastern states. Although it has a similar size and flower display, its leaves aren't quite so stiff and have a less lethal point at the end. John Nelson tells me the margins of Yucca gloriosa leaves are smooth and won't cut your fingers. So if you have an outdoor area you want to add drama to or need a line of plants to define an area, go to the trouble to find Yucca g/oriosa to grow in that area. All yuccas are larval food hosts for two species of skippers - they don't eat the leaves but burrow into and consume the basal tubers, leaving tell-tale frass. I haven't seen any information that it hurts the plants, yuccas are notoriously hardy and long-lived.