Deer Resistant Plants

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• Yucca filamentosa Adam’s Needle, Silk grass Z 5-9

  tall stalks bearing alabaster bells

  

  $12.25/bareroot

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  Six foot tall stalks bearing alabaster bells tower over clumps of swordlike leaves with margins of curly threads in July and August.

  Size: 30" leaves - 5' flower x 5'
  Care: full sun, moist well-drained to well-drained soil. Drought tolerant
  Native: New Jersey to Florida
  Wildlife Value: It’s only pollinator is the Yucca moth and the Yucca is the only food source for the Yucca moth in a mutually beneficial relationship.
  Awards: England's Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit; Cary Award Distinctive Plants for New England and Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden Great Plant Pick.

  In 1596 Gerard named the genus Yucca from the incorrectly identified plant, the Iucca.  Filimentosa is from the Latin filum meaning “thread” because of the threads on the leaf margins.  Colonists cut the leaves of Y. filamentosa to make thread.  Indians used the root as an ingredient in bread, to make suds for cleaning and the leaf fibers to make clothes.  For the Cherokee it cured diabetes and skin sores, induced sleep in people and drugged fish for an easier catch.  Tradescant the Younger collected this in Virginia before 1640. Both Gerard and Parkinson grew Yucca filamentosa in their personal gardens.  Jefferson planted it  in 1794 and called it “beargrass.”