Yucca on my terrace is going nuts. The last time it flowered was about a month ago, which was surprisingly late. More often than not, it flowers in May or June. When I returned to Motovun around a week ago, a few flowers were still to be found on a tall stem rising above the pointed leaves. But another stem is now coming up from a different branch of the crazy yucca. It will be in full bloom around Christmas, I reckon. Of course, it is yet another blunder, for there will be no insects around at the time to pollinate them (“Yucca’s Blunder,” November 26, 2009). Although the bloom will please my beloved and me between Christmas and New Year’s, when we will be in the hilltown for at least a week, we will also feel that something is amiss. The yucca is definitely going nuts. Climate change, no doubt. And flowering when there are no insects around is a sure way to perish in the fullness of time.

Addendum (November 19, 2017)

Almost exactly three years later, yucca on my terrace is going nuts one more time. And no kidding. This time around, it sports no less than six stems with abundant flowers. Although there are hardly any insects around this time of year, the yucca seems to be in the best of shapes. Which puts a big question mark on the title of this piece and the one preceding it eight years earlier. Blunder, what blunder? Climate change appears to be to the yucca’s liking, after all. Year after year, the weather in Istria seems to be ever more similar to the weather in the Americas and the Caribbean, where it hails from. Live and learn.