Transplanting a Yucca Tree

Wear thick, tough gloves before handling a yucca tree. The foliage of a yucca tree is sharp and can cause injury to bare hands.

Transplant a yucca tree in the fall, using a spade to dig around the circumference of its roots. When digging out older yucca trees, sever the ends of the roots with your shovel before digging out. This encourages the roots to branch at the ends, which promotes growth in the tree's new location.

Remove as much dirt as you can along with the root ball when uprooting the yucca.

Dig a new hole to twice the depth of the root ball in a location that gives the transplanted yucca tree full sunlight and good drainage.

Add fine gravel or sand into the extracted soil and mix until it is 50 percent gravel or sand to 50 percent soil. Refill your hole half way with the soil and sand mixture. The remaining depth should be equal to that of the tree's root ball height. If soil is already sandy, dig no further than the depth of the root ball and do not add sand or gravel to the extracted soil.

Place the tree root inside the hole and backfill without using amendments such as compost or fertilizer. Pack the soil lightly as you fill to avoid excessive settling later. Yuccas prefer soil with a pH of 5.5 to 7.5 with few nutrients. If the soil requires additives to achieve this pH, use only a small amount of compost.

Add enough water to moisten the soil. Yucca trees require very little water and after transplanting will not require additional watering for at least two weeks.

Water sparingly and only when the soil is completely dry. Do not overwater. Yucca trees prefer dry soil and their roots are sensitive to rot.

Feed the tree only once each year with organic material such as compost. Yuccas prefer poor soil with few nutrients and aren’t heavy feeders.

Prune your yucca’s flower stalks after the blooms have faded to about 4 inches above where the stalk emerges from the stems maintain a neat appearance.