Hello there! Plant novice here seeking sage advice, if anyone would be so kind.

My girlfriend and I bought a large, healthy indoor yucca plant back in October 2017, and are now fearing for its life.
Being naive and uneducated in plant care we initially housed it in the hallway where there was little natural light reaching it. I fear during the first couple of months we may have over-watered the plant too (roughly every 7 days). We noticed the lowest leaves were yellowing and dying off, along with dark spots and leaf tips - this is when we looked to the internet to see what's what.

Since Christmas, the yucca is now proudly sitting in our living room (by the window) which lets in a lot of natural light (albeit winter means about 8-10 hrs daylight where we are). And since then we've seen a good few new, young leaves growing at the very top. As we were worried about how we may have been over-watering we watered it at Christmas, then January 14th - which is the most recent watering.

Although the new leaves are coming through at the top it looks as though the leaves from he bottom are still dying quicker than any new growth. I've now noticed a few dark spots appearing on the newest leaves and am wondering if our previous potential over-watering may have led to root rot and I was hoping guidance from more experienced plant lovers may be able to help identify if this is the case? We were thinking of inspecting the roots/cutting them/replanting this weekend...

Here are some images that may help. If you require any others please let me know and I'll happily supply. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

I think the Ivy may have chocked the life out of it. Other members will have better advice for you, but for now I would cut away all the ivy and dead leaves.
Where are you located? That is a help to us
To The Forum

As thick as the trunk is at the bottom, I would think you need to plant it in a larger pot. Based on the plant still trying to grow new leaves, it may have a good chance of surviving. Take the ivy out and plant it in another container. The two plants have different water needs. Yucca needs very little water. They are happiest in the desert.

Good luck, I'm sure someone else will come in with more information and suggestions. No one likes to see a plant die. Well, maybe poison ivy.

It is all about the light. Yuccas require more light than most plants used indoors. Yours had virtually no light for about two months. When a plant does not get enough light, it uses very little water so overwatering is very easy to do.

However, if the roots were rotted, the new top growth will not be as healthy as it appears in the photos. When a plant doesn't get much light, it can't support as many leaves. It wants to keep growing so it sheds older (lower) leaves while continuing to add new ones on top. Older lower leaves are never replaced.

Strip off all of the discolored ower leaves. Keep it right in front of your sunniest window. Allow the top two inches of soil to get dry before adding water. I strongly advise against your investigating the roots because they only need proper watering, nothing else. Moving it to a larger pot at this time would be a mistake

The Hedera ivy is irrelevant, although it too looks like it is suffering from the lack of light.

Be patient as it will take time to recover. As long as new leaves look mostly healthy, you will know you are on the right track.

HI & welcome! Anyone selling Yuccas as an indoor plants should be given a time-out! I think you would have a much easier time with a Dracaena or Shefflera if you want an indoor tree.

Hedera = spider mite magnet.

Yucca canes can be grown quite successfully if they are kept close to and right in front of a sunny window and not over watered. Over time, indoor Yucca leaves will become softer and more arching and less spiky. A different look for sure, but still healthy.But definitely not a good choice for reduced indoor light.

Hello Liveyuccalive, Yucca can take full sun, quite drought tolerant too. It is normal for this plant to drop older and lower leaves, so just remove them. It is good to know the plant is growing new leaves from the top, so it is striving to survive.

In winter, it would be good to position this plant by a south facing window to get as much warmth and light it can. You are growing it indoors so you have to make adjustments to watering. It may be more ideal to hold off watering but continue to keep it warm and get as much sun it can get. Light levels indoors during winter is not quite sufficient for this plant, so it slows down in growth, dropping leaves it cannot sustain as it tries to continue on growing very slowly.

Don't know where your location is, but speaking from the Yucca I have here in my area I have them growing outdoors in a container even in winter since our winters are milder and this is the time of the year we get rain. From April to November it is gets very hot and dry here and this plant survives those onerous conditions. My plant has been hardened already being outdoors all year long, so it can take it.

Hi all, thanks very much for your replies!

First off, I'm in (not so sunny) Scotland. We purchased it from a lady who had kept it in her living room by the window and it was very healthy looking at that point in October. She lived in a house so perhaps she moved it out to her greenhouse (she showed us around and kept many plants!) over winter to allow for more light, but it sounded as though she kept it in the living room.

We are in a flat so we'll have to make do with it remaining indoors Where we are keeping it now is next to a south facing, large bow window (270 degrees worth of window light). I have posted some more pictures below with the dead leaves removed - and I'll be moving it closer into the middle of the bay than the pictures show.

I'm hoping to avoid/put off re-potting if it might make things worse. My worry is still the lowest leaves are showing signs of yellowing, drooping and "burnt" tips (can be seen in photos). I shall leave it for now with no more watering and see how it fares over the next short while. If anyone has any new ideas in response to the new images, feel free to let me know

Your Yucca was living for nearly two months with virtually no light. You have subsequently improved the light, but it will take a long time for it to overcome the 2 months of light deprivation.

You are right to leave the roots alone and to reduce the watering. Of course, it will need some water whenever the top quarter of the soil feels very dry.

Remove dying lower leaves and hope for healthy new growth on top.

Hello Liveyuccalive, patience will be your friend. It is a slow growing plant and any change in its environment takes a while for it to adjust. It may take the entire season to do it. Winter is always a challenge for plants that typically prefers and enjoys living outdoors.

Btw, does your container have drain holes? I noticed on the last photo there was no saucer under the container. Or if this container you have is like a self watering container that holds water below, I would suggest you remove the lower part or add more drain holes somehow to allow good water drainage.

During mid Spring, you can improve further your soil media, make it a bit more grittier. The roots of this plant hates sitting in too damp soil. I would add in more pumice into the soil or use cacti mix with added pumice or perlite in it.

I would not worry much about the drying out leaves on your plant, it is typical for the lower older ones to dry out first. You are growing your plant in less than ideal environment so the plant is trying to sustain what it can with the very limited light access it is getting.

Here is mine, even growing outdoors, it is doing similar thing this winter, dropping the older lower leaves, light levels still short:

I agree with Christine, ivy is known for its deadly overstruggling intentions against other plants. An ivy managed to kill our long lived pine tree. I'd cut this off without repotting the plant right now, as it seems to be in such a poor state at the moment. I also agree with Tiffany and Will, yucca needs so much sun, it actually can tolerate full sun all day and never show a distress sign. This is a plant that loves the sun.

The damage that Ivy can do to outdoor plants does not seem to apply to indoor potted plants.

Hello!

I've been meaning to throw out an update for a while, just wanted to let you know that now the longer summer days are here the yucca is still flourishing and living well with the sunlight and proper watering intervals!

No repotting was necessary in the end, got rid of any other dead leaves and the ivy too. Just wanted to pop in to say thanks all again for taking the time to help! Here's a quick snap below:



Have a good one!

Lovely to hear about your Yucca's recovery. It is truly a sun loving plant. Good growing!

Hello again all :)

On the anniversary of the fear of this plant's demise I come with another query.

Over the summer the plant did well and looked in recovery (as the other update showed), however after summer it started to show negative signs again. Again as the cold set in and darker days came along, I'm thinking overwatering may have been its undoing. Here are some photos of its current state:






The yucca's trunk/stem near the top started to wilt/drop over - at first I thought it was just trying to bend a bit to stay low for more sunlight. However with time I noticed the trunk was softer than before. So I tied a support string to keep its head up and stopped watering. The trunk/stem is firm again but I haven't tried taking away the support.

Main query:- the wilting could be a sign of overwatering and perhaps the root could have experienced rot (I believe?). Does it look and sound like this is the case and should I now investigate the roots and cut them if black - or again have patience and await the warmth and longer sunny days?

The newest leaves still look okay however there hasn't been any new growth since autumn. The older leaves are starting to die off and I will be looking to cut them off - I just wanted to leave them there for the photos in case they told more of the story

Thanks again.

There is probably some root/watering related issue going on, but it is impossible to tell from your photos just what that is. Please post a photo that shows how it is potted. Also, provide details of your watering routine.

Regardless, your Yucca is badly in need of pruning. It is clearly above the top of the window so it is now bending in the direction of the window. Having waited so long to prune, makes pruning more problematic now.

it might help not only to prune it as others have said. but to get a source of artifical light on it from the top.



i think if the light cannot be improved you should re-home the plant and choose a type better suited, i know you want to do right by it, but sometimes we have to do the right thing.

Thanks again for the replies Been away for a little while, apologies for the delayed response!

Pot
- I have attached picture of the potted area below (remote for scale). This is the same pot that the lady who owned the yucca before used and thrived in, so no changes had been made as of yet.
- Internal diameter is ~35cm, Height of pot is ~ 30cm. No drainage.




Watering
- During the summer I'd say the yucca was watered every 10 to 14 days, about 250ml (when it was doing well).
- Now during the winter I've reduced watering to between 17-20 days, same amount (roughly 250ml). However this varied somewhat as I always wanted to ensure the top 2 inches of soil was dry first.

Other
All dead leaves have been pruned and will keep on top of that.
The top of the plants highest leaf is ~8ft high and the top of the windows is ~9ft from the floor.

After the most recent water (about 4 days ago), the leaves on top appear to be curling inwards on themselves a bit, like they did when I was overwatering - reckon I should cut down on watering more maybe?

Should the plant be re-potted into something bigger, perhaps with drainage?

If the height is now a problem I have heard trimming down yuccas is possible, is this an avenue to explore?

I'd consider re-homing if necessary but was hoping to try and breathe more life into it with spring just around the corner.

Thanks again!

@Liveyuccalive - Your Yucca has simply outgrown its space. It is now so tall that the upper portion where the growing tip is located is no longer receiving enough light. That is why it is weaker at the top and starting to bend. Changing the pot will have no effect on that. You may not be giving it quite enough water, but I don't think that is the primary problem. Longer days of sun are also not going to help much either.

You can prune off the entire top section, and you will probably get healthy new growth coming in starting just below the pruning cut and growing upward from there. Be sure to cut it back far enough that it has lots of growing room.

As a more complicated alternative, you could air-layer the top section. That would have the added benefit of providing you with a rooted top section that you could keep as a separate plant.

WillC has given you loads of good advice. I am wondering why no one has mentioned the addition of nutrients and minerals to this plant? It seems to me that the plant would only benefit from having a nice layer of worm castings laid atop its soil. Keeping the castings away from the trunk of the plant, of course.

I would like to commend you for expending so much time and energy on caring for this yucca. I think repotting would help quite a bit, as that pot you have now looks awfully small for that size yucca. I can assure you that your plant is completely root bound, with its roots circling like crazy, hoping for more room to expand.

My yucca is outdoors and did well in a small pot, too, for over a decade. When I repotted it, however, and to a much larger ceramic pot (w/ drainage), the yucca really happied up considerably and now is now splendidly healthy.

Everyone should keep in mind that shifting houseplants from A to B can be tricky. I read once that some plants will go into shock if they're moved only a few yards, from one spot to another. Depriving your yucca of enough light must have been tortuous for it. Glad you know better now.

Oh: One of the things I always do with my potted plants is make sure they have good drainage. I use old teabags to "plug" up any drain holes. The bags allow water to drain while keeping the potting soil in, and also add a tiny bit of "food" for the plants. Good luck with your "fellow Earthling."