On 9/6/2015 at 12:05 PM, Sandy Loam said:

Hello. I have a question about Yucca Elephantipes/Yucca Guatemalayensis. What is its true cold-hardiness? I see that davesgarden.com has it listed as a Zone 9b tree. However, there are several of these trees growing to enormous sizes around this town, Gainesville, in northern Florida. They are obviously old enough to have endured a couple of very cold snaps over the years. Unless they are all in micro-climates, they would have experienced a night where the low temperature dropped to 17 degrees Fahrenheit a few years ago, although only very briefly. This must be more of a Zone 8b plant unless I am mistaken. Does anyone know?

 

 

Mine which is a lot smaller survived 24F no damage at all. In a pot, and roots being ina well draining mix but stays moist a lot. Here it is inside and it’s still growing 

I have both the store version (short leaves, brighter green) and the big leaf glossier version (i got it out the trash). It remains to be seen how they will fare my winter since it will be the first winter for both. But the big leaf version seems to grow significantly faster than the common store version. Also an interesting thing I noticed, the store yucca has gray/blue wax striping on the leaves, which the bigger leaf variety lacks.