I have always had an interest in growing-on cuttings of some of the more
unusal garden plants and I would like to consider that I am fairly
successful at it but I must say that I find yuccas a considerable challenge.

In my experience, don't be fooled into thinking that you have some nice
plants coming along when in fact they have not rooted at all, even a year
later! How they manage to survive that long without roots is beyond my
understanding.

I had to cut down a very nice 'gloriosa' a couple of years ago and I must
have had about twenty young shoots come up from the old root (three new
ones have appeared in the last week). I have potted up every one of them
after digging deep and taking a reasonable piece of the old wood. Even
eighteen months later some of them look very healthy but, if I turn them out
of their pot, they have no root at all.

About one third of them have rooted and are growing-on nicely but, of the
rest, about one third have rotted and the rest are pretending to be
rooting!

Some I have put into gritty compost, some into compost and perlite, and the
rest into my favourite peat and sharp sand. They don't seem to prefer any of
those mixes and I am thinking of trying them on Weetabix!

I think that they are very difficult and I would like to know what I am
failing to do right.

Eric