Mutant Agave 'Blue Glow'

In late November, I announced that I planned to limit my blog posts to twice a week through the holiday season but, with the exception of skipping one post, I seem to have slid into my regular routine.  This post will be brief but I wanted to share recent developments with my "mutant" Agave 'Blue Glow'.

Agaves are generally monocarpic, which means that the plant dies after flowering.  They take a relatively long time to bloom, which is presumably why many species in this genus are called century plants.  Of course, none of them actually take a hundred years to bloom.  Agave americana are notable for taking as long as thirty years to bloom, whereas Agave desmettiana and Agave vilmoriniana tend to be quicker about it.  Many agaves produce pups well before they bloom and bulbils, bulb-like baby plants, on their bloom stalks as they die.  Agave 'Blue Glow' isn't known to pup much, if at all, and, in my experience, it's stingy about producing bulbils as well.

I planted several 'Blue Glow' Agaves when I first developed my south-side succulent bed in 2014.  All were similar in age.  Since then, I've been apprehensive that they'd all bloom and die on approximately the same schedule.  In July 2022, my largest 'Blue Glow' started behaving oddly, producing pups out its sides, as opposed to at its base as most pupping agaves do.  In January 2023, it began producing a bloom stalk.

Photo taken January 22, 2023 as the stalk was well on its way

The stalk was fully developed and had produced a handful of bulbils when these photos were taken in August 2023

We removed the stalk a month later in September 2023 and I harvested the viable bulbils

As the mother plant showed no significant signs of decline, we cut back the bloom stalk and monitored its status.

While the plant looked homely when viewed from directly above the cut stalk, it appeared healthy

Last week, I noticed something new was happening.

The side pups had become larger and you can see a stalk, now in excess of a foot in height, on the right in this photo

There are actually 2 stalks as you can see from this angle.  Please ignore the grass weeds.  They're hard to remove without getting stabbed!

If my experience with the original bloom stalk is replicated, it could be several months before the two stalks mature and produce blooms, much less bulbils.  I plan to leave it alone for now to finish its business.  My neighbor had a similar experience with a 'Blue Glow' and, following its second bloom episode, the mother plant deteriorated and she removed it.  I expect my experience will be similar.  As it is, I notice the the mother plant's color has faded over time.

From a distance, surrounded by other 'Blue Glows' as well as other succulents, the plant doesn't look too bad, although its color is noticeably less blue now than the smaller 'Blue Glows'

Viewed from the west end of the bed looking east, everything looks normal, although you can already see the larger bloom stalk popping up behind a Euphorbia 'Sticks on Fire'

As the spiky plants are crammed together rather closely, I'm not looking forward to the removal process but that's most definitely on the agenda for 2025.  There's also a humongous Agave 'Blue Flame' in the mix that's swamping the plants around it that'll have to go at the same time.  None of my 'Blue Flames' has ever bloomed (and I have a lot of them) but they pup like crazy and those pups all too quickly approach the size of their parents.

All material © 2012-2024 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party