Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Tell the Truth Tuesday - sad agave...

Allison at Bonney Lassie has been encouraging everyone to share the not-so-great parts of our gardens. While i haven't been doing a lot of gardening, a break in the rain this weekend left some time to address the truth that one of my agaves didn't look so good:

...that doesn't look good!
Much to the delight of all my neighbors, that's in the front garden. This poor agave (unidentified when it was planted) had been declining for a while. The first part of cleaning it up just exposed more of a mess: 
pretty sure i know what/who the culprit is!
Since rot doesn't usually cause dirt to migrate into the center of the agave, it looks like the gophers are back. Sigh. 

Thankfully, a replacement candidate was waiting in the back garden pipes:
its been here for a while, gaining size
This is agave franzosinii 'Lost Wax', from the Ruth Bancroft garden. It was high time for it to get out of the pipe, before it takes over like Mr. Ripple has. A few moves with a shovel and some new gravel mulch, and it's in the front garden:
where it will have plenty of room to grow
The blue works well with the blue ball decoration and everything else. It's on a slope, so the rain shouldn't bother it too much. I will be upset if the gophers eat this one, although there's another pup safely protected from them.

Some other things i got done this weekend while the rains held off:

  • trim back all the roses
  • start to trim back the butterfly bush (...to get to the roses)
  • debate whether its too early to cut back the grasses...
Any of those situations could have made for good "tell the truth tuesday" pictures, but sometimes cleaning up is the best part. Is it spring yet?

12 comments:

  1. Oh, poor sad ugly Agave victim. I'm glad you had that beautiful A. franzosinii specimen to replace it.

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    1. me too! and thank you for reminding us to share the progress/areas that need help... it was actually a motivation to getting this fixed.

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  2. I wonder which agave that was... Your replacement looks fitting with the pale blue.

    Cutting back grasses...wait a month or so!

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    1. I keep reminding myself about NOT cutting things back yet... I think the other agave was just a no-name agave americana. It came from one of our local nurseries which both doesn't sell a lot of agaves and doesn't label them. I'm not sure they realize they are in the desert!

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  3. I'm so sorry you have gophers - and I'm so glad I don't. (The raccoons are bad enough.) My next-door neighbor has persistent problems with gophers, despite the fact that she and her roommate have 4 dogs and she regularly brings in gopher-buster services.

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    1. I am glad you don't have gophers either! I should look into gopher busting services... maybe that will last longer than my trapping!

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  4. Ugh, for a moment I was afraid you were going to say you had the dreaded Agave weevil. Now that would be bad news. I love the new franzosinii 'Lost Wax', gorgeous! Remind me what your pipes are made of?

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    1. oh, that would be way worse! now i need to go look up if that thing survives in our area... The pipes are made of some kind of industrial strength, corrosion resistant fiberglass. My landscaper said they look great, but were a pain to work with :)

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  5. Sorry about your agave loss but your replacement is lovely. Hope the gophers leave this one alone!

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    1. Well, this particular gopher won't be eating it, because the gopher is dead :) hopefully its relatives will learn!

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  6. gophers attacking Agaves is just something I hadn't considered. I dare them to mess with an A. fransosinii though.

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    1. they eat them up from the roots - they've done it to a yucca, several mangaves, and agaves. horrid creatures!

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