Agave, yucca and other durable succulents grow well in the High Plains and Intermountain Region.

One of the speakers at the Plant Select annual meeting was Dan Goodspeed, the Mountain States Wholesale Nursery sales rep for Colorado, Idaho, Texas and New Mexico. Dan’s presentation was designed to help plant people think about yucca and other desert plants in a new way.

“These are the quintessential western plants,” he said. “The one thing we can grow here better than anyone else is grasses and these are big grasses. Just think of them as Big Blue Gramma.”

Mountain States Wholesale Nursery, a grower based in Arizona, has had a 15-year partnership with the Denver Botanic Gardens. Many of the yucca and other succulents at the gardens came from Mountain States and demonstrate how well these plants grow in our area.