ALL ABOUT AGAVES AND PROPAGULES

Agaves are an important structural feature in my garden. 

Agave desmettiana is one of my favorites because it make an enormous number of pups which is a good thing because it is not reliably hardy in our area. If they don't winter over then I can easily replace them with those growing in pots.

These ones were all put in the ground this spring. I may try to protect them this winter as they are not too large to cover.

My first agave was Agave parryi. I fell in love with its tight blue rigid leaves. I think it cost about $40 so it was expensive. However, it was going to give me years of joy, or so I thought.

I planted it in the ground in 2002. By early 2004 I noticed that in the center there was a rather tight narrow and pointed rosette of leaves. Oh no, I thought, it's going to flower! I love the candelabra out there in the desert scene but not in my garden- yet. It was to be. Each day the flower stalk grew by at least a foot. No wonder the plants dies after flowering (monocarpic).
Finally the stalk reached its full height and it burst into flower. Every bee in the neighborhood was there. I saved the seeds and some were allowed to fall on the ground but none of them germinated. There were no pups and no bulbils and the plant duly died.  I have read that aside from pups which grow from the rhizome, agaves will reproduce by forming bulbils in the axils of the flower stalk. I had never seen this until walking around my son's neighborhood in Phoenix I espied and agave with pups and bulbils.

Bulbils galore!  Certainly would like some of those. I don't know what variety it is but I'm sure it would do well in a pot.

Now, seeing these bulbils reminds me of a photo I took of an Echinacea plant in my garden. I decided it was a mutation but maybe the Echinacea is mimicing the Agave.