Remember the past two summers when I was obsessed with killing the damn yucca plant in my front yard?
I actually managed to kill it. Since it got warm this spring, I have been anxiously checking and rechecking the area where it grew before to make sure no rogue sprouts are coming back. Since it is August, I think I am actually safe.
I keep getting search engine hits for “How to Kill a Yucca Plant” so I am posting this as a public service message.
Things that did NOT kill the yucca plant:
- Squirting it with Round Up.
- Chopping off all the leaves, spraying it with bee killer (there was a beehive in its roots), then painting the leaf stumps with Round Up.
- Mixing Round Up with oil then spraying it on the leaves.
- Digging out a 10 foot by 5 foot area 2 feet deep, throwing out hundreds of gallons of roots and dirt, then filling the hole with an entire bottle of total vegetation kill. (While this didn’t kill the yucca, two years later we still can’t get grass to grow in the area of the yard near the former hole. Weeds yes, grass no.)
- Digging a bigger hole and using more random plant killing chemicals.
- Filling the hole with water, then covering it with a tarp for a month in an attempt to drown the yucca and periodically re-filling the nasty moldy hole with more water.
- Setting the hole on fire.
How did I finally kill the yucca?
1.) I let one of the sprouts grow until the leaves were about as long as my forearm.
2.) I gathered them up into a bunch and held them together with a rubber band.
3.) I cut the tops off the leaves with scissors.
4.) Filled a large plastic cup with Round UP (possibly the long-term plant killing kind, I can’t remember)
5.) Submerged the leaf-tops several inches deep in Round UP.
6) Weighed them down with a big rock so they would stay in the cup.
7.) Covered the cup with plastic so rain wouldn’t dilute the RoundUp. (Make sure that some of the leaves are exposed to sunlight because photosynthesis is how RoundUP works, I think).
8.) Waited about a month.
Then the MOTHER FUCKER died.
And that, my friends, is how you kill a yucca plant.
____________________________________________________
PS. Would you believe how much money we spend on organic groceries and on my organic garden and still I unloaded a huge toxic payload of chemicals in the front yard to kill that plant? I was a woman obsessed.
This post cracks me up because I think that was the very FIRST post that I read of yours and when you said it was 2 years ago, I was like “wow, time sure does fly in blogland”. I’m glad it was killed…what a pain in the a**.
Thank you!!! I inherited a yard/garden with so many of these sprouting up, including some which are creeping steadily into the yard and growing larger every year. I think the roses are shading out one of them to death, but I’ve been losing my patience with the things…
Wow, at least nobody can ever call you a quitter.
Moby Yucca? Aye Captain!
We have three in our front yard that are going down. As god is my witness. I hate them. They are all over our property, and I can live with a few, but these three are so trashy.
We got rid of our two yuccas by moving to a new house!
Thank You Thank You, now I can FINALLY destroy the menace! I thought I had the only ever living yucca!
It has taken me two years to be successful, but I have a yucca killing suggestion to add. After having a large yucca removed, the roots continued to sprout, especially since they were chopped up and scattered in the process. Where I had a couple of large yuccas removed, dozens of smaller ones began to sprout. I used a small paint brush to apply Ortho Brush-B-Gon, Poison Ivy Killer, full-strength, to the small yuccas as they sprouted. It took a couple years for all the potential roots to sprout and several applications to kill each sprout, but this spring I believe I can say that I have eradicated the yucca using perseverance and poison.
For nine months now, my husband and I have been killing a bank of yucca plants (about a dozen). We dug them up (tons of roots!) and now, every day, one of us patrols the new flowerbed for the first 1/8″ of highly recognizable green tips. Not one day has gone by without a green tip. I dug one up the other day and the white part was no less than 12 inches long. It’s spooky to think of this damned thing growing, growing, growing. Alas, even at a foot down, it broke off so I didn’t get the source. But we are people obsessed. These damned yuccas will not win!!!
We moved into our home 2 years ago. We dug up approx. 10 yucca plants. The holes were about 2 ft. deep and 2ft wide for each plant. We had professional landscaping done. I’ll be damned if those little shits didn’t come back! We have used Roundup and Spectracide ( liquid and Gel), by the gallons, pulled the little stems comming back up, and nothing will kill them! Help! We are now on a daily watch of just spraying them. Ugh.
Did you read the blog post you commented on? You can’t kill them by spraying. You have to let ONE spout grow to be about 12 inches long. Then you gather the leaves together with a rubberband, snip of the very tops and dip the tops into a cup of roundup. You let that sit for a week (for over kill, you could replace the roundup every few days with new) and it will kill all the roots. Believe me, I have tried everything else. THis technique worked for two different Yuccas in two different locations.
do you believe they sell those things………….I just moved to a place with yuccas…..WV!…………THEY ARE SPREADING LIKE WILDFIRE……….I also used Southern STates root killer………It takes a couple of tries..but they are dying………as I see new ones coming up…………..I make sure I get the seeds and throw them in a field where the annoying four wheelers are……Kill two birds etc………..
[...] I love my blog. I love the friends I have met here (both IRL and online). I like getting feedback on things I am thinking through. I like going back to see what the hell I was thinking in the past (even though it is often embarrassing). I like it when people think I am funny. I like having a place to vent. I like meeting new people. I like opening my email and seeing new comments. I like knowing that someone will stumble on this blog and know they aren’t crazy or they aren’t the only one who ever felt how they feel right now. I like helping people battle the scourge that is yucca plants. Basically, I blog because I like it and the pros far outweigh the cons. If it wasn’t enjoyable any more, I would stop. Right now, blogging makes my little world better. [...]
It’s so good to know that others are tormented as we are by inherited yuccas. We moved into this wonderful house (Kansas, just outside KC) last November (it’s now August). I knew the yuccas had to go, and I thought I could just dig out these ugly, spiny monsters. Now I know better, with the doggone things sprouting up six times for every one we axed out. The EPA or FDA should require warning labels on yuccas in the nurseries as to what the guy who plants them is inflicting on all future owners of the property. I am considering giving up and just chopping them back to the ground every year.
I just found this site and am I glad, We bought a home here in oregon 4 years ago and all this time I have been trying to get rid of the damned yucca plants that are along the side of the house.
Earler this year I had a friend come in with a backhoe and dig up a bunch of it but ha did not get deep enough to get all of the roots so they came back with a vengance, I remembered from when my grandpa wanted to get rid of something he poured rock salt on it and that is what I have done to the yucka, I poured about 8 bags on and all over the area in another week I will pour another 8 bags this is supposed to KILL the plant and all the roots. Will let you know later if Pop was right.
Your post is #1 when googling “eradicating yucca.”
I’ve got the bastards naturalized in the PASTURE of our new place.
Maybe not so surprising, but I live in PENNSYLVANIA.
WTF?
Will goats eat them?
We’re going to find out.
I just painted them 5 days ago all over their filthy planty parts with FULL STRENGTH round up and drilled holes into their main “trunks into which I poured full strength roundup. Leaves seem to be browning. I am anxiously awaiting their demise. And I am pissed because I paid a landscaper last spring to get rid of them. He knew damn well they’d be back and never told me – actually had the nerve to feign surprise when they regrew. Seems like this will be of battle of wills. I will not allow them victory!
Down with Yuccas!!!
Holy shit, I thought killing these things was going to be easy. It seems the previous owners (and builders) of our home may have quite possibly done EVERYTHING they could to bring the value down. We have five of these monsters growing in spots in our yard in Indiana. I knew they were technically weeds, but I had no clue that they were so impossible to kill. I’m snipping off some shoots and cupping them in roundup this week. Thanks for the advice.
FYI, when mowing around these things I can’t help but hear the themesong from “Little Shop of Horrors” in my head…
Death to yucca plants!
We moved into our house on Long Island, NY 5 years ago that had yuccas growing wild in the back yard. (Long Island soil is quite sandy, and yuccas don’t mind cold, snowy winters). The old lady in the house before us ignored her back yard for years. We dug up the yucca’s and made a small flowerbed on the side of the fence. The yucca’s toward the center of the yard stopped coming up because we mowed over them with the grass, but unfortunately the one’s in my flowerbed are uncontrolable. I’m glad I found this blog because I just told my husband today that I wanted to dig up the flowerbed and grow grass in it’s place and mow those suckers to death. We’ll try dipping the tips in Roundup before dismantling the flowers. Hopefully it will work. These yucca’s creep me out the way they keep coming up. ‘Little Shop of Horrors” is a perfect description.
After my husband were done ROFL, we decided that we will follow your advice! My husband has pulled up 19, and we still have more to go….dug the big caverns as well. We are taking your advice…and passing this site on to friends (even if they don’t have yuccas!) Yucka!
Thank you!
This is the best news ever. My mom has yuccas and for years i have been digging, trying bleach, you name it almost, and now i have come here for answers. I am actually allergic to the plant, one of the tips broke skin and sent me to the emergency room, now is my time for payback. thank you.
Just a follow up to my post earlier. I took FULL strength concentratated roundup and painstakingly painted both sides of the yuccas leaves – all the leaves and all the plants. Within 2 weeks they turned brown and then tan and the core/ stem seems soft now after about a month. The little ones are rotten and just pull off at the soil the bigger one have all dead leaves which I just cut off. So far no regrowth or new sprouts yet. In addition many of these plants also had holes drilled into the main “trunk” of the plants and concentrated roundup squirted in to the hole (about 3/8″ drill bit). I actually think just painting the plants was enough but I was on a serious mission.
Me and my wife laid in bed laughing at your post. But found it most enlightening. I say that as we sit in front of 40 acres with 100′s of Yuccas per acre. I believe we will go broke buying roundup.But we are determined to go down with the ship. Im hoping goats eat them but from what I am reading I believe the Yucca will eat the Goat.
Six years ago I planted one freebie yucca from a dear friend (LOL) in my small garden–it overpowered everything! Three years ago I dug it out of the clay soil–Backbreaking! After reading websites on the eradication issue, I think your solution sounds like the way to proceed.
Great post, can’t wait to try it. I’ve tried all the steps above except the fire and force-fed round up…I can’t wait to get home from work now!
I LOVE THIS POST! Seriously, I just got in from about an hour of digging a large trench and pulling feet upon feet of 3″ thick root with suckers from one out of five yucca “zones” around our house. I’m hoping that I got this one zone eradicated with all my digging and pulling of the main roots. You could feed a family of four for a week with the amount of thick root I pulled up… wonder if it’s edible? This is year three in my process since pulling the large main plant the first time. If this doesn’t work…. I’m trying your round-up solution. My biggest concern for not wanting to use round-up is the close proximity to other favored plants. Though I think this particular one was killing a yew I had planted in the area last year. I told my husband that if we ever buy a new house, and it has yucca, the only way I would buy the home is if the owners blasted each spot and left the crater for evidence that the yucca was gone! This is Michigan! WTF!? Why is yucca in my yard!?
OMG !!!!! I have self inflicted a terrible curse upon myself! We lived in VA and my wife had bought a small house Yucca potted plant. We had it, in a pot for 20+ years, inside. Our 2 sons grew up with it. We moved to Florida and, with great affection, donated the plant to the Condo Association to be planted on the grounds…and they did plant it. We were delighted how well it grew! Loving the new warm sun and outside rain. Then we built a house and thought how nice it would be to have a part of our old friend at the new home….. Well, I pruned the now large Yucca at the Condo and started a line of “privacy” Yucca shrubs on the property line about 8′ apart….and I kept adding as I got cuttings. Now we have a line of about 40. I went back to the Condo the other day and noticed they had chainsawed the plant off at the ground and it produced many more shoots, each one as big as when we first pruned it. I had a dream last night about mine growing faster than I could prune them so I thought I’d surf to see if anyone knew how to kill them… You never see articles about KILLING plants!!!! Except in the case of the Yucca! I think I have really blown it this time. This is A FINE TIME TO FIND OUT WHAT A CURSE THEY ARE OUT OF THE POT!!
I’m going start experimenting asap wth a way to kill them. I like the drilled hole plan with the ROW poured directly into the trunk. Please pray for me….The only good news is that I’m 70, so how big can they get till I croak and they are someone elses problem??
THANK YOU!!!! I have been digging them up for FOUR YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will try you method immediately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG!!!!!! We just bought a house with yucca (we didnt know what it was) and we will be putting the leaves in the cup of Round Up for the rest of our lives………hopefully it will die before we do!!
Thank you, I have cut down the same Yucca tree nearly every year since I bought my house. Now
I can try to eradicate it once and for all. If it works I have 3 other full grown trees to get
rid of. Only problem is largest plant must be about 30+ feet tall.
YUK on YUKKA’S! I dug a pretty little yukka plant up that my mother planted before she died. I dug deep and wide to get it all. Soon it came sneaking up through some perennials my wife had planted. Soon again two appeared. Then 3 then 4!!!! We let it go until today!!!! Again, I dug and dug and dug. 3 ft wide, 3 ft. deep, lots and lots of tubers and pieces. I felt good about getting it all. I raked through the dirt taken out of the hole before I put it back. NOW I have read this post and frown at the fact that I just made a million more of those little suckers. No plants are to be planted near that hole until I’m sure I’ve defeated the menace. It’s down with the yukka or my name isn’t Bears Butt!!! I have hated that pokey little guy ever since mom planted it. With this new found knowledge I too shall reap the rewards of killing the dreaded yukka. Invest in Roundup folks!!! I’m heading for the store!!
I too thank you. I have just spent the day digging up my whole garden to follow the shoots from the yucca-like dragon trees that my landscape gardener told me he had removed. From three tress I have close to 20 new shoots. They grow from the tiny little chopped up pieces of trunk…bastards! I have to let them grow to try this approach but i can’t wait. I can tell you that eradicating bamboo is easier than this. I know this for a fact as I spent last year doing that!
Good luck to you all.
Hi you in America. Here in Sussex, England I have been trying to kill a yucca, and have three more to get rid of. Your comments are really useful, and I shall certainly try out the roundup on the leaves, along with the prayers. I love the site, have not laughed so much in years, it is great to know that we are all united in one mighty effort to rid the world of this ugly beast. It’s obviously better done with a good sense of humour. Tell me, can you eat it, or smoke it?
Christine.
wow…I’ve just found this site and can’t wait to try the remedies listed…not only have they grown back, but they’ve sprouted a few extras…I have five where I once had one
Unless of course there really IS some useful reason to keep them…medicinal purposes…LOL
I am in the UK and have had a yucca in my front garden (yard!) for thirty years or so. At first I thought it was quite nice, you know, continental looking! Every other year or so it would sprout a pretty yellow whitish flower or two. However, when it reached about five feet tall and had multiple shoots springing out every where round the main stem and was starting to dominate the corner near my driveway I decided I had had enough of it. So, while I was having a dead cherry tree removed by a tree surgeon, he offered to remove the Yucca for a few dollars more! He took his chainsaw and leveled the yucca to the ground taking the hacked foliage down to the local tip with the remnants of the dead Cherry tree. I thought that would be it for the Yucca, but to my surprise a few weeks later it started to make a comeback with the spiky shoots springing up around where the main stem was. I dug the shoots out as they appeared and left them on my lawn with a label saying ‘free to a good home’! They were all taken by my neighbors! Have my neighbors got a contract out on me do you think? \O/ Anyhow, to make a short story long… the dumb thing grew back to its five foot size again (HUGE), so I slung some chains round the lower stem and towed it out with my 4×4… and another trip to the local tip. I thought I would do a proper job this time and dig the roots out, so a 4ft sq x 2ft deep hole later and with what I thought were all the tuba’s/roots removed I back filled with soil and lawned over. A few years later and it had grown back yet again to its colossal size… it is bloody nigh indestructible! The last time my daughter reversed into it with her car and took it off at the roots… yes, you guessed, it has grown back yet again! This has been a thirty year quest trying to remove this pest without success. I will be looking to try the Roundup method next as suggested above. I wonder if Roundup is called something different in the UK?
Medical science should examine what makes a yucca so indestructible… we may be able to apply it to human physiology and perhaps increase our life span (immortality even!), that’s if you don’t mind spiky green foliage growing out of your ears and nose.
DaveH
We’ve been trying to kill these horrid beasts that resides by our driveway since we moved here 5 years ago. My husband looks like a madman by the darned yucky plants (as my daughter calls it) when he’s chopping the roots up…big mistake – spread the roots around, create more of them!! We’ve poured gasoline on them, set them on fire, chanted and danced naked in circles around them, but to no avail! We’ve got deer that come through our yard that eats all of my other plants, but won’t touch those things!! I came across this post today, and I will be buying a bucket of Round Up tomorrow and waiting ever so patiently for them to grow out again, I pray that this will finally defeat these demons for the sake of all mankind! Good Luck to all…”Yucky-Plant” Haters shall prevail!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you and by the way Thank you.
Thank you for this post. I am glad to know that I am not the only one that has tried everything else in vain. Clever on the fire, I can’t believe it didn’t work. I think I may go buy a special cup just for the occasion.
I killed my yuccas by using a insulin needle to inject a small amount of roundup into the base of each leaf stem. If no needle is available use a cordless drill with a small drill bit and use an eyedropper to put roundup in the drilled hole, it works, must put in each plant leaf stem.
I find the common ones not to be so attractive, but some of the varigated ones like color guard or gold edge and just beautiful. I think they need to get rid of the ones like Adams needle from the industry cause some of the nicer Hybrids are quite wonderful in a garden, try planting Crape Myrtle (Dynamite) near a bed of Yucca “color gurad”, It’s just amazing! Also I don’t know the name of the calltivar, but my sister has these blue yucca that and just georgous. Not only do they have nice color but the plants them selfs always look nice, I oticed years ago sometime Adams needle or Spanish dagger sometimes can look kind of raggety!
Just cut the top of the base of the plant off with a hack saw, then using a one inch drill bit drill a hole down the center of the plant, next pour gasoline down the hole, you dont even half to set it on fire. the gas will soak into the plant and kill it.
After nearly digging a hole to china to try to get rid of this plant…twice, removing a crapload of roots the second time, I was for sure I had it licked. After seeing those leaves sprouting up today I wanted to cry. I figured I couldn’t be the only one and I see that I’m not.
Thanks for the tip…this s.o.b. has seen its last day.
This is just a great page, I laughed the whole way through with everyone’s stories. Until today, I didn’t know I was in such trouble… I just spent hours outside, just me and the Yucca’s. I am glad I didn’t spend years trying to dig these things up as they are bigger then I am..Thanks for the advice, I just wonder if anyone else tried after reading the post because what if you just had good luck? I am scared now that I spend a million dollars on round up and the damn things come back and haunt me… anyway, thanks soooooooo much for saving me so much time and effort!
Easy to kill them….roundup mixed with diesal fuel.
Mix in large sprayer/spray and enjoy the demise!
I am going to try this and I really hope it works as well for me as it did for you. My husband and I just bought a house and the front is lined with them
I dug them out and the suckers came back. UGH!!
I am also a woman obsessed. My husband thinks I should just let the GD plants grow. NO WAY!!! I will not admit defeat!!! They will not win!!! I’m so glad to hear someone had some luck killing the GOD foresaken things. I have been battling mine for four years!!! I am not going to give up!!! I have to stop digging… they are near an electrical box…. not worth dieing for… Thanks for the encouragement. And, Joe Mamma… don’t plant any more of these devil plants. You are causing someone eles a world of hurt once you are done enjoying them!!! They should be banned from the earth!! I hate them!!!
I have 2 Yucca plants that are coming back after being gone for 4 years. I thought they were gone. I will try this remedy.
Go to your your local farm/feed store and get the industrial weed killer the most state departments of transportation use and mix it triple strength and and then double the volume with diesel fuel… this mix will KILL everything/anything, including yuccas… love these posts and hang in there! LOL
We have been trying to eliminate two Yucca plants for two years. We are thankful we found your solution and are going to purchase the goodies to disintegrate those suckers tomorrow. They were on the property when we bought the house four years ago and we have definitely discovered they are torture to destroy. And one of them is beside of our Well. Who, in their right mind, would put such a devious plant in their yard? Thanks for the good advice on how to get rid of those things.
TO KILL A YUCCA – THE EASY WAY!!
After spending two weekends digging them out by the roots, I knew there had to be a better way.
Just finished up a little experiment, and it worked great! It was quite possibly the easiest way to get rid of Yucca forever, roots and all!
I’ll post pictures later, but for now here’s what to do:
You’ll need the following:
A) 2-3ft section of clear plastic tubing (Got mine for $.97 at Wal-Mart, near the fish-tank supplies)
B) Air Pump Inflation needle (The thing you use to air up a basketball, about $1 for a 3-pack)
C) Concentrated Roundup (Can use regular roundup, but will take a little longer)
D) Stick, coat-hanger, or something else to use as a stake.
Steps:
1) Attach the inflation needle to the plastic tubing, by either placing the threaded end of the needle over the tubing, or stretching the tubing over the threaded end of the needle.
2) Pull out a few leaves from the center of the yucca, which should reveal the white tissue at the base of the plant.
3) Stick the inflation needle into the base of the plant.
4) Fill the tube with concentrated Round-Up
5) Attach the tube to the stake and prop it up above the plant, so the Roundup fill flow down through the tube and feed directly into the base of the plant. (If you’re using un-concentrated roundup, you may want to re-fill the tube every couple of days. Give it about 4 doses.)
Yucca plants photosynthesize very slowly, so it will take some time before you notice the plant dying.
After about 2-3 weeks, the leaves will wilt and die.
Piece of cake, and it cost less than $1 per plant!
WAY better than digging them up!
Enjoy!
-Tim