Yucca Trouble

[JaneG]

There is an old yucca plant in my yard. This year I noticed a large part of it has died and the remaining half of the clump has spots on the leaves and they seem to be dying from the tips on down the stalk. My neighbor has one that is in the same condition. We have had a VERY wet spring, could that be the problem?

I don't know anything about these plants other than everyone says you can't kill them.

So I ripped out all the dead stuff and cleared all the debris that had gathered underneath.

I found about 6 little new shoots coming out of the bottom of the hairy stump of the one that had died back. Do they die back occasionally to let the new ones start? Should I try to cut it back hard occasionally?

Any advice on caring for my yucca is most welcome. DH hates it and said he tried to take and ax and kill it about 10 years ago, but it came back. I like it, it makes a nice unusual specimen in the garden.

Thanks!

[kHT]

Jane, we have several but no spots. We have cut ours back several times and try to keep them cleaned up in the fall. Matter of fact I just dug one out, dug down 5 feet to get all the roots and runners, they are really hard to kill. If you don't get all the roots they will come back. The spots, without a photo I can't figure out what that is.