New Agave

Sometimes I wonder how the big box stores stock their plants. A few weekends ago, I found a pretty agave stuffed in the back of the bottom shelf (again). It was the last one, and looked pretty sad (no water, no light will do that to a plant), so it came home with me, plus a 50% off discount.

I decided to add it to the frontyard garden, which mostly counts on grasses and ice plants, and needs some spiny accents. In the ground it went:

new Agave 5/5/2012

It was labeled as Agave species, which is not very helpful. It has no teeth, and at this point it is hard to tell whether the brown tips at the end of the leaves are damage or spines. I think its either A. attenuata, A. bracteosa or A. desmettiana. A few weeks later, its looking a little better:

Agave 5/27/2012

 The new leaves that are growing in the center also have brown spines, and all the leaves are now growing more upright. The color is definitely a dusty blue-green, which makes me think it's A. desmettiana. I like the way it looks with the Elijah Blue (Fesctuca glauca 'Elijah Blue') in the background. The colors are very similiar, but the textures are almost opposite. We'll see if it starts producing any offsets. Since A. desmettiana isn't technically hardy in zone 11, I may try to remove any offsets that show up and overwinter them inside. Just in case...