Q. Why are the tips of my yucca leaves turning
brown?
 |
| Brown leaf tips on yucca. Can be from soil or irrigation problems. |
A. This is pretty common on yucca in our climate and
soils unless they are grown in filtered sunlight and the soil has been prepared
well before planting. They always tend to have brown tips. In the case of your
plant, judging from your picture, it does seem excessive.
When we see brown tips on the foliage
of desert plants it usually means a watering problem, a soil salt problem or
lack of drainage.
This particular yucca is native
to the Chihuahuan desert so infrequent irrigation is critical to its health.
Most of the soils in the Chihuahuan desert are better than our landscape soils
created by the builders of our homes.
Regarding your irrigations,
compare your watering with how these plants might be watered in their natural
habitat. This is a guideline for how you should water. They won’t need watering
that often so if you are watering more frequently than every two or three weeks
in midsummer, I would suggest this is too often.
If this plant is on the same
irrigation circuit as other landscape plants, and these other plants are not a
desert plants, then I would suggest the plant is being watered too often.
The volume of water you give the
plant is not as critical as the frequency it receives water. In other words,
you can give it a large volume of water and not hurt the plant as long as you
wait long enough before the next irrigation. Giving large volumes of water may
waste water but it seldom keeps the soil too moist for the plant between
irrigations.
If this plant is watered too
often, remove it from that irrigation circuit and water it by hand every few
weeks. It will like a couple of deep winter irrigations, a spring irrigation, a
couple of midsummer irrigations and a fall irrigation and that's about it.
If the applied water is close to
the trunk, then the trunk could be rotting. Keep frequent irrigations away from
the trunk. However, it is okay to water in a large basin beneath the plant if
it is done infrequently.
If there are other plants around
it, it is probably getting enough water from its neighbors. But I would still
give it an occasional drink to be on the safe side.
