Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Soaptree yucca has mixed regional fire guidance: it appears on FireWise lists, but its recommended elevations vary between states.
Arizona's plant guide names Yucca elata in its FireWise shrub table. The elevation columns recommend it from 3,000 through 6,000 feet; the three higher columns, covering 7,000–9,000 feet, say not recommended. New Mexico's table extends its favorable selection through 7,000 feet, then advises against it at 8,000 feet and in the 9,000-plus column.
The difference matters most for a garden around 7,000 feet. Both guides include soaptree yucca, yet their elevation advice at that point differs. A simple claim that the plant is suitable wherever either list applies would lose a condition printed beside its name.
Arizona describes its water needs as very low to low. Even so, the same publication says FireWise qualities depend on maintaining the landscape, including disposing of accumulated litter and removing damaged plant parts. Use the state-specific elevation guidance first, then plan the upkeep of the planting rather than relying on the yucca's name alone.
Form
shrub
Mature height
~20 ft
Water need
low
Rated in
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; New Mexico
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
New Mexico Forestry Division publishes this as its FireWise Plant List for New Mexico. FireApproved accounts for all 140 printed rows and publishes 95 exact same-rank owners already represented in the directory; 29 exact taxa without an existing record, 14 unresolved spellings or higher-rank matches, one compound taxon cell, and one species row whose only apparent owner has an infraspecific printed identity remain held. Every published row retains the source's Y, N, ?, or blank elevation cells. Publication scope does not erase those elevation limits or establish suitability for every New Mexico site.
Arizona at or above 3,000 feet (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-12-01
AZ1289 is explicitly limited to Arizona elevations of 3,000 feet and higher. FireApproved publishes 69 exact owners as regional Arizona context, retaining every water and elevation condition. It is never promoted to statewide low-desert guidance or an independent Tier 1 vote.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AZ, NM, NV, TX, UT.
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, NM, TX.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 5b; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 27199, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 3, Trees and Large Shrubs, p3-r36 [nm-emnrd-firewise-table-row] (with its recommendation)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
Listed among fire-resistant plant materials for Arizona above 3,000 feet.
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico — New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division · 2003 Forestry Division PDF · original sourceCorroborationCompilationlineage: csu-nmsu-firewise
“FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”
Listed as Yucca elata (Soaptree yucca) in Trees and Large Shrubs. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=Y, 5,000 ft=Y, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=N, 9,000+ ft=N. Water need: VL-L; sun/shade: S; mature height: 3-15’; approximate bloom: Jun.
