Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' (Adam's Needle)

Also called Adam's needle, or simply 'Color Guard' yucca, Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' is a dry-loving, evergreen perennial cultivar that represents the halfway point between a shrub and a cacti. Closely resembling plants like agave though actually related to asparagus, yucca is native to a large swathe of the eastern half of the United States, and can grow anywhere with full sun to partial shade and relatively dry, well-draining soil. The 'Color Guard' cultivar is noted for its highly attractive variegated foliage, which is bright green contrasted with buttery yellow. Individual leaves are covered in small spikes and fine hairs, making it resistant to deer and rabbit damage, and since it's evergreen, your Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' will look just as good in gold and green in December as it does in August!

Although the 'Color Guard' cultivar's clumping mass of foliage typically only grows about 2-3' tall, Adam's needle produces an upright flower spike around mid summer with drooping, bell-shaped white or pink-tinged flowers that brings the plant's total height to around 4-6' tall! On an interesting note, Yucca filamentosa has a unique pollination relationship with a group of moths called yucca pollen moths; without the plants, the moths would die out, and without the moths, the plants would die out! Yucca is an excellent pick for a variety of gardens for its ornamental value and its hardiness, tolerating drought, heat, poor soil, animal damage, and even salt.