Agave drama

February 19, 2019

Stopping by Christine Ten Eyck‘s house to return something after her recent Garden Spark presentation, I was greeted by this beautiful monster. An 8-foot-tall Agave franzosinii droops over a rocky ledge, like a giant octopus crawling over the seafloor.

The profile view is just as good.

Everyone needs at least one charismatic plant in their garden, don’t you think? Moby was mine. Now I’m waiting for Moby 2 to grow. What’s yours?

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Digging Deeper

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All material © 2024 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

10 responses to “Agave drama”

  1. Doris says:

    I have just planted a century plant agave this past October, very small, I can’t wait to see it grow. My charismatic plant in the garden is my small Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum tree, I’m in love with it, specially at this time of the year. Thank you for asking.

  2. peter schaar says:

    I have a bunch of charismatic plants. The most dramatic are Sabal mexicana and Agave salmiana ( or is it A. x pseudoferox?).

  3. Paula Stone says:

    Hi Pam,
    I always enjoy your blog and have learned a lot from it. Thanks for all the work you do.
    Your horse trough water garden inspired mine. Before, I had only used them for planters.

    Shirley Fox featured my garden in her blog back in Sept. last year. She did a wonderful job and I was just delighted with it!! She told me later that “my issue” had twice her usual readership, probably because I forwarded it to everyone I know.

    If you get to Fredericksburg this spring, please give me a call. I would love to meet you, pour you a glass of wine and show you my garden. I’ve found that showing it to experts is both fun and educational.

    Hoping to hear from you this spring.

    • Pam/Digging says:

      Thanks for the lovely invitation, Paula. I hope to have a chance to meet you one day. And I’m glad to know you were inspired to create a trough water garden after reading Digging!

  4. Lisa at Greenbow says:

    The most dramatic plant in my garden is the Weeping Spruce. It always garners comments. I also have a ‘Thoweil’ Hinoki Cypress that people think is an odd plant. I love them both.

  5. Lori says:

    Man, I just love huge agaves when they’re maintained like this. I’m currently losing the battle with my ever-reproducing front yard monster, but its sheer scale is definitely is a conversation starter!

    • Pam/Digging says:

      It sure is. Your agave is a wonderful monster of epic proportions, Lori. What a bummer that it’s getting out of control, but I suppose that’s what monsters do.