This one has by far the best spikes but my current favourite is one of the variegated forms. This one belongs to friend. I have had my eye on it for a while now and always photograph it when I visit. This was it last year:
It has been fairly obvious it was on my wish list and last year he surprised me with a little offset. At the time the variegation was limited; you never really know with very young plants how they will develop. This is it today and the leaves are starting to get a really good variegated edge.
If you look at the older leaves you may be able to see they are split. This is one trait of this agave, if you don't water it for a while and it starts to shrivel up when you do water it the leaves are prone to split like this. This is unusal for an agave and takes a bit of time to get the watering right, especially in winter when you would usually keep them dry for months on end.
If it carries on like this it may look even better than its mother and that is not going to go down well. It is part of the fun of sharing variegated plants, wondering if you have given away a real star. Of course now I have this one, there is another one on my wish list; agave titonata black and blue!
Nothing like a little Agave competitiveness, eh! You MUST get that 'Black & Blue' one...it's perfect for your collection!
ReplyDeleteI love the friendly rivalry between my collector friends as to how get track down that new plant first, or get the best form of a plant. Sadly the black and blue is not even available in the USA yet, even the clever people over at Xeric plants are having problems getting this one to prop in the numbers needed, so it is going to be a long time before it gets to the UK.
ReplyDeleteI've been following the story on titanota and its variations for a while too. My favorite is the alabaster-white form; you can spot one 100 meters away. I have not seen the leaf-splitting here.
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