Spanish Dagger

Size, growth and what to expect

Spanish dagger grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. It starts as a mound of stiff leaves and after some years lifts it on a woody trunk that may branch near the top. Plants reach 3 to 16 feet tall and 3 to 8 feet wide, and garden plants often stop near 5 feet. The blue-green leaves run 1.5 to 2.5 feet long and end in a sharp spine.

Spikes up to 8 feet tall carry nodding, creamy white bells, often tinged red or purple, between April and November. Leathery, six-ribbed fruits 1 to 3 inches long ripen in November and December. Hummingbirds and bees visit the flowers, and the plant gives cover to wildlife.

It grows wild near the coast from eastern North Carolina to northeastern Florida and west along the Gulf to Louisiana. Its home is coastal dunes, beaches, shell middens and the edges of brackish marshes, on sandy soil. It is rare and local in the wild, and NatureServe ranks it imperiled to vulnerable in North Carolina.

How to grow Spanish Dagger

Spanish dagger is a yucca for full sun, and it takes a little shade. It wants a sandy, well-drained soil and stands drought, heat, humidity and salt spray, though not salt water over its roots. Keep it out of ground that stays wet. Set plants 4 feet apart and keep them 4 feet from a wall, well back from paths and play areas, since the leaf tips are sharp. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the base of the rosette at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stem. As with other yuccas, soak the seed in water at room temperature for a day before sowing. Sow it in spring, and most seedlings come up in one to two weeks, though some seed waits two to three years.

Water weekly through the first summer, then only in long droughts. Mulch young seedlings over their first winter where frost comes, as with other yuccas. Deer and rabbits seldom bother it.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, so there are no male and female plants to pair. Like other yuccas, it depends on the yucca moth to set seed, since the moth carries the pollen, and its larvae eat some of the seeds. It is a host plant of the cofaqui and yucca giant skippers, whose caterpillars feed on it. It has no serious pest or disease.