Agave Garden

Agaves are monocots – plants with one seed leaf, parallel veins, and flower parts grouped in threes – just like palms, onions and grasses.

Most agaves die after producing a flower stalk and setting seed. However, new agaves most often grow, not from seeds, but from “pups” at the base of the parent plant. Some agaves also reproduce with new plantlets or bulbils on the flower stalk that take root when they fall to the ground.

Agaves occur in Mexico, Central America, the Southern United States, Northern South America, and the West Indies. They are sometimes called “Century Plants” in reference to the amount of time it seems to take for them to bloom. In actuality some agaves under cultivation will bloom in as little as four or five years while other species grown “hard” will indeed live for decades in the garden or in the wild. The estimated average lifespan for the only agave native to the mountains surrounding the Coachella Valley in southeastern California, Agave deserti, is fifty years.

Link to foxpaws article: A Noble Plant