Finally time for a mangave update: part 1

So as those of you who have followed for a while will know, I LOVE mangaves.  Sadly in the UK these are few and far between. So, over the last couple of years I have made a concerted effort to get as many as possible, including a shared order to Plant Delights nursery in the USA. It has been a successful couple of years and I now have over 30 varieties.

So time for an update on all the mangaves and manfredas, it may be a little photo heavy.

Where to start, the first plants were the manfredas. There used to be a lot more, but I managed to leave most at the last house.  There are two forms of manfreda undulata: chocolate chips and cherry chocolate chips which was new this summer.  The chocolate chips flowered last spring which set the plant back, but at least it has produced offsets.

They need a good re-pot, maybe come spring. I overwinter them in an unheated greenhouse and they have been fine down to -7c when kept totally dry.  I'm not sure they would like it any colder.

Then there is the manfreda guttata that flowered over last winter.

The flower started at this time last year, it flowered once, then a second time, then a third and then bulbils appeared on the stalk, so it really is the flower that keeps on giving .

Again it seems fine if kept dry over winter, so I've 3 planted out at various places around the rockery. The bulbils and offsets mean I have a lot of these now.

The manfreda maculosa below is new this summer.

The last one seems to be listed as manfreda or mangave guttata "jaguar".  Again a new one this summer. It has been slow to settle in but is finally starting to grow.  It's supposed to be one that would cope outside in London suburbs, but will be pampered this winter and planted out once I have spares.

The ones that were left behind were manfreda virginica which was planted in the garden for about 3 years and a form of manfreda guttata called "Spot" which as the name suggests has larger spots.  If you have either of these to trade please let me know.

Onto the mangaves.  There are two that you can get relatively easily in the UK: mangave bloodspot and magave macho mocha. I have two m. bloodspots.

The plant on the left I've had for years and it's never actually grown.  I now know that it's probably to little space and water that is the issue. The one on the right was new this summer and is a slightly different colour and grows at a much more managave like rate.

They seem to be fine in my unheated greenhouse so will be there again.  If I ever get another I'll try one outside as I've heard of others in the the UK doing well in the ground.

The same goes for mangave macho mocha.  Since last year I have been treating the mangaves less like agaves and giving them more water and space.  The result has been dramatic and it has easily doubled in size. Finally looking like the stunning plant I've seen in photos.

You can see in the photo that I also have the variegated form mangave espresso.

The variegation is definitely stronger in bright sunlight, almost losing it in the greenhouse over winter.

During the search for new plants, a friend announced he had an un-named form, he said it hasn't done much for him, and sure enough it has sat there for me refusing to budge.

So the UK mangaves. My good friend Paul produced two before he died. They are nice compact plants, making them good for a small garden. They also offset nicely so over the years I have been giving them to good friends and trading to collectors.  They are both crosses with agave obscura (is that the old or new name I can never remember). The first is a. obscura x manfreda maculosa.

It has a nice upright form and the leaves have a triangular shape to them as you can see the brighter the light the better the spotting.

The second is a. obscura crossed with manfreda virginica.  This as you would expect has longer more drooping leaves.

These are marginal for me, in terms of hardiness.  Even kept dry they suffer in a bad winter, although they do come back.  This one flowered last spring and had nice compact flowers, not as big or many as agaves, but better than manfredas.

A friend had two agaves in flower at the time; agave mitis, and a suspected horrida.  I managed to get pollen from both and hand pollinated the flowers.  The seedlings are now at the end of their first summer, and out of 40 that germinated I managed to keep 18 alive.

 There now seem to two distinct forms: the mitis ones

The second form is perhaps the more interesting, it has a good blue colour, nice spines and more upright shape.

Next year should see these properly develop and then I can decide which ones are worth growing on. Either way I'm excited about having my own mangaves and maybe even naming them if they show promise. As both agave parents are planted out in the UK so hopefully the offspring will have some hardiness.

Then through contacts the Walters Gardens forms started to arrive. If you don't know them, go to Mad About Mangaves page (link here) and look at the amazing variety of mangaves they have produced. Most of the forms from now on originate from this amazing mangave producer. The first lot started arriving last summer, in no particular order.

Mangave bad hair day. I'm still undecided on this one, it probably gave me the most trouble. Firstly it didn't like being inside over winter, so had to be moved into the greenhouse. The it didn't seem to like being in a pot.  So finally given it is supposed hardiness I planted in the new rockery.

It is perfectly happy, but given its form I can't decide if it works in the ground or should be put back in a pot. What it does have going for it, is that it should be totally hardy for me. 

The mangaves seem to fit into different groups around leaf shape, colour and offsets.  I had thought the wavy leaf forms would be some of my favourites they have proved to be quite slow growing and a little awkward to decide how to pot. The first two that turned up were mangave catch a wave and mangave falling water. They both behave very similarly, I would say a medium growth rate, not offsetting.

First up mangave catch a wave.

Then mangave falling waters

I'm guessing these two may be ones that improve as they get bigger.

Not all the plants have been so restrained, mangave kaleidoscope seems to want to take over the garden, I only got it in August last year and have already taken off four offset and there are 3 more.

I wish it would put more effect into growing and less into offsets, but it's getting there. It is another one that I want to test for hardiness, not that is is listed as totally hardy for me, but I have so many offsets I can afford to test the main plant. Again like m. bad hair day it probably needs to be in a pot where it can flop over in a natural way.

Those that know me won't be surprised by my view of the looser less structured forms, I do like the structural plants and this runs through all my succulents.  The exception in the first set of mangaves is m. moon glow.  The reason is the colour, even young it really lives up to its name.

That's the closest I have managed to get to the colour, it is properly blue.  It has grown at the same speed as the wavy forms, and like those hasn't offset yet. I think this one is going to be one that deserves being somewhere on display. Not quite hardy for me, and given that it hasn't offset it will be put somewhere and kept above -5.

The ones that have stood out from last year purchases are the more structural ones, the faster grower has been m. mission to mars. 

It is already a decent size and a good structural form and colour.  It will make a really good focal point but will no doubt also stand it's ground if grown among other plants. It should be hardy for me, although sadly it has not offset so I am not sure I would risk it until I know I can get a replacement.  The growth is going to be a bit of a problem with the rapidly growing collection.  As mentioned above it makes a huge difference how they are grown: large pots and more water gives you much more growth.  I am now considering restricting both he pot size and water to try and slow them down a bit.

The other fast grower is m. pineapple express. This has to be one of my favourites and it offsets nicely as well which is a bonus.

I love this one and I've had it in one of the most prominent locations in the garden. I would love this to be hardy and to be able to plant a few in the garden.  Sadly I don't think it stands a chance in a bad winter and may struggle in an average one.  Given I have a few spares I am actually going to see how it copes in a cold frame this winter. Fingers crossed I would love to be able to grow a few larger ones and don't have to space to store them somewhere warmer.

From one that has really performed to one that is ticking along, m. lavender lady.  You can really see the parentage in this one and sadly that means it is not hardy at all.

You can see the potential in this one and also that the colour is going to vary greatly depending on where it is grown.  I think I will probably move it to a smaller pot, it hasn't grown to fill the pot like the others, plus it would make it easier to bring inside over winter.  It has no hardiness at all, listed as Tropical, whatever that means.  It is sad that it needs to be inside, hopefully it will be worth it.

The the final one from last years searching is m. silver fox.  This is the most agave like of the first group and has an even better colour than lavender lady.

As you can see it is a fast grower, sliver blue in colour as the name suggests.  Another one that likes to send out pups. It's marginal for me apparently, so I'm going to try one in the cold greenhouse to see how it copes.  I'm looking forward to seeing this one develop into a specimen plant as it will be a one to have out on show.

So that was up until the end of last year. I will get onto this year in a second post.

Exciting mangave update

So last year was a good mangave and manfreda year, with flowers on two manfredas, more on that in another post, and the mangave flowering.  So a quick recap: the mangave was produce by a friend and is hybrid between manfreda virginica and agave obscura

The pollen was provided by friends over at Crete Lodge exotic garden. They seem to have agaves in flower every year now, this time there were two agaves flowering at the same time. An agave mitis and one labelled as agave horrida, although they suspect it is not.

Photo courtesy of Melissa at Crete Lodge

Isn't that wall amazing, such a shame that the agave left such a big gap.

So the last time I posted progress on the flower spike there were seed pods. It seemed to take forever but finally these opened and amazingly there were seeds. These where sown and placed in a heated prop.  To be honest I was not that confident anything would germinate.

I was wrong, one month later and there were around 40 seedlings.

The problem was that in my eagerness, winter was the wrong time to sow them. They needed to be kept alive until spring and I'm terrible with seedlings: too much water, too little water. So I'm really surprised that 4 months later 19 are still alive. I'll take 50% surviving any day.

I know not very interesting to look at yet. It is only in the last few weeks they have really started to grow, most are now sending out their 2nd proper leaf. How good would it be to have a few new mangaves of my own making. I really hope that some of the horrida (or not) parentage comes through. I do like my toothie plants.

The funny thing is, with the two different pollen donars I would guess I am now the largest mangave producer in the UK. 

Plants are waking up

It's that time of year again, alternating between the joy of plants waking up and the fear of them rotting. The UK has had a very mild winter so hopefully this will reduce the amount of end of winter damage.  We just need spring to be not too wet and just for once to move smoothly from winter - spring - summer.

Anyway it's time to start waking the plants up and getting back into the garden and greenhouse.  This is about checking how the plants have done, removing any signs of rot and checking for bugs.  The greenhouse is looking good.

The manfreda / mangave bench is looking the best it ever has. I kept a closer eye on these this year having learnt that they do not like to totally dry out even over winter.  This made a big difference and even the small manfreda guttata offsets that I removed at the end of last summer, are not looking bad.  The mangave fans may spot some surprises / future posts in there.

The echeveria agavoides 'ebony' in the black bowl has formed a really good shape. It's lost some of the colour as expected, but will colour up as soon as it can be moved outside.  The large bowl is more established.

This year they seem to have held their colour much better than previous years.  Hopefully this will mean an even darker colour when they go back into their summer spot.  The bowl is now full, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens as they start to push up against each other.

It's good to be back in the greenhouse again and thinking about projects for the year. Lots in the pipeline, so hopefully we'll have a good summer.

Is this finally the year of the mangave

So manfredas and mangaves, what is not to like; the colour of the manfredas and the structure of agaves combined. It is strange that the plants available in the UK have not really changed in years. We have a good selection of manfredas with virginica, guttata, maculosa and undulata all being fairly readily available if you look for them. You can even get choice forms like undulata 'Chocolate Chips' if you search hard enough.

I haven't quite sorted out the best growing conditions for my undulata 'Chocolate Chips' yet, it seems I probably grow them too much like an agave, and should give them righer soil and more water.

It did however flower, which is typical of manfredas; interesting but only a few flowers on the stalk.

Sadly the flower was at the start of spring and I couldn't get hold of any agave pollen to cross with, so no seeds. This was really frustrating as it would be a great parent plant for mangaves.

You don't grow manfredas for the flowers, it's the colour  and speed of growth that make them an ideal partner for agaves. Manfreda guttata is a good example of this, and my most dramatic manfreda.

This plant has offset well and there are a few decent sized pups, in the photos the pot is 30cm to give you an idea of size. I just need it to flower at the correct time, when agave pollen is available.  Or figure out if pollen can be frozen for use later.

So the mangaves. There are two main plants you can get in the UK,  'Bloodspot', and 'Macho Mocha'. My 'Bloodspot' is a work in progress.

There is a variegated form of 'Macho Mocha' call 'Espresso'. I am lucky enough to have both and they pretty much behave identically.

Sadly they suffered last winter and are just getting back into looking good again.  The great thing about mangaves is that they quickly. Next winter they will be brought inside as the unheated greenhouse is just too a little too cold.  So if you are looking in the UK that is probably what you will find.

The thing about manfredas is that they flowers readily, and even in the UK agaves flower.  So ther are probaly lots of un-named mangaves out there in private collections.  Again I have been lucky in that I have managed to get hold of two. Both crosses with an agave obscura (or polyacantha var xalapensis, I forget which is the current name). One with manfreda maculosa, the other manfreda virginica. They have very different forms.

The manfreda maculosa x agave obscura have triangular sections to the leaves.  It seems to offset profusely which is useful.

As with many manfredas / magaves the colour depends on the light and sun levels.  In direct sunlight this one is covered in spots.

The manfreda virginica x agave obscura is more upright with softer leaves.  Speaking to friends who also took pups, these were quite variable in colour and form.

I had high hopes for this one, then dispite only being a few years old it flowered.  At first it looked like it would be a typical manfreda flower; a few flowers on the stem.

The flowers themselves are larger and typical of agaves.

So the timing for this flower was better and a friend had 4 agaves in flower.  She rushed over pollen from agave mitis,  and a large blue agave which has a spectacular flower. The signs are good, with at least 4 seed pods definitely taken.

Obviously the issue with seeds is that they need to be germinated and grown. Me and seedlings do not go well together. The last seed project was the aloe polyphyllas, 48 out of 50 seeds germinated, only 2 seedlings are still alive.  I guess, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the mean time keep your fingers crossed that the pods produce viable seeds.

This summer, with the flowers and propagating my plants I have renued my search for more varieties.  In the USA, there are now a lot of stunning varieties avialable. Just go to Walters Gardens Mad About Mangave page for a sample. While these are now for sale in the US, they have yet to make it over to the UK.  I understand that plans are afoot to change this, but it will not beuntil for a year at least. In the mean time my search for European collectors / growers continues.  If you have any manfredas or mangaves and would be interested in trading please let me know.

No doubt I will keep you up to date in the seeds progress, and if you live in the US, what are you waiting for go out and buy yourself a pot of happiness. Mangaves have been in the shade for too long,  this is their year to shine!

Manfredas and mangaves

Like most people the preparations for winter have started to gather pace, and this weekend saw the pots put in the greenhouse to start drying them off.

It was a lovely autumn weekend, lovely and warm in the sun, then cold as soon as it goes in.  It made moving everything in easy, but is sad as summer is over.

Putting the plants away is an important time for me; as each pot goes in it gets a little health check looking for bugs and damage.  Then once they have dried out, they get a final water for the year this time with a dose of anti vine weevil stuff.

I've had a big cull of plants over the last year or two,  getting rid of plants that no longer held their own and a lot of duplicates.  The only set of plants that has been totally unscathed are the manfredas and mangaves.  You can see my largest manfreda in the photo above, a manfreda guttata.

Manfredas are a great family of plants, very underestimated.  In the UK there are two or three more common ones you can find if you search for them: M. Virginica, M. undulata, M. elongata. They seem to come and go in popularity and at the moment M. guttata seems to be in favour.

I'm not surprised as the colour is great and the leaves have good spotting.  There is a form called "spot" which have really big spots, but I have not seen it or sale in the UK.  This big plants came from a nursery earlier this year, I was a bit worried about the state of my little plant and wanted a spare. Expecting to find a small plant you can imagine how quickly this one jumped into my car on seeing it for the same price as all the little ones on the shelf.  I'm pleased to say my little plant which had been struggling for the last couple of years, has finally started to take off as well.

The other manfreda really strutting its stuff is manfreda undulata chocolate chips.

It is living up to both parts of its name: good spotting on the leaves and rocking the crinkle.

I'm hoping for flowers on both these plants next spring.  Unlike agaves they are not monocarpic so the flowers are not something to worry about.  It is the repeat flowering that make them an important feature to agave collectors as they hybridise with agave to produce X mangaves.  The most common being X mangave bloodspot which is thought to be Agave macroacantha hybrid x Manfreda maculosa.

My plant is only little and seems quite slow, but they are beautiful once established and well worth tracking down.

The other common one is the mangave macho mocha.  I'm still struggling to find the best conditions for this one, it hasn't liked being ignored, so will be getting a lot more attention from now on.

The colour on these tend to be really good, especially if given less water. The variegated form managave espresso seems just as temperamental for me.

Both forms are snail magnets, they love to take the top layer off the leaves. It is always the case that just as they are getting back to no damaged leaves new damage occurs.

Just recently there seems to be a lot more mangaves hitting the market in the US, sadly they have not reached the UK yet so it is more pot luck finding someone who has made their own hybrid and is happy to let you have a seedling or seed.  I managed to get two different hybrids from a friend, the first M. maculosa x A. obscura.

This plant has very triangular section leaves and good spotting.  It was one of the plants that I almost lost due to negligence last winter.  Strangely not because of cold, the reverse, it was so mild and having no water for such a long time in the green house almost killed it. Thankfully it is quite a strong grower and so has recovered and with a bit more care over this winter will be back to it's best next year.

The second is M. virginica X A obscura.  A more relaxed plant and initially I was not really taken with it, apart from the purple colour it was a bit too floppy for my liking.  Then this year it has really started to come into its own, the leaves have become more upright and the spotting has developed.

If it carries on with the same growth rate next year and the spotting continues to develop it will be a stand out plant. It is the joy with X mangaves you really don't know how they are going to turn out and a batch of seeds can give you a range of different forms.  Sadly Paul passed away two ago and so we'll never know how all the other seedlings turned out

Hopefully a lot more mangaves will become available in the UK soon, along with better availability of manfredas.