Agave Blue Flame: A. shawii x A. attenuata

[Patrick]

Hello all,

I picked up one of these last year, it's a great looking palm. I'm trying to get a gauge for what this will eventually become. I'm hoping some folks have this growing; it's been around a while. I saw the pictures from the Huntington website, but I thought I ought to ask here too. I was going to plant this near my Brahea decumbens, but I think it will be a bit too close.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

 

[Silas_Sancona]

2 minutes ago, Patrick said:

Hello all,

I picked up one of these last year, it's a great looking palm. I'm trying to get a gauge for what this will eventually become. I'm hoping some folks have this growing; it's been around a while. I saw the pictures from the Huntington website, but I thought I ought to ask here too. I was going to plant this near my Brahea decumbens, but I think it will be a bit too close.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

 

First off,  welcome to the forum

The Agave in question usually don't get too big, especially if you keep any offsets the plant produces to a minimum. I have one that is about 3 ft wide atm in it's pot. That said.. as long as you give it some room, i think it would be a good companion planted near something like the Brahea sp. you mention.  Seeing that it can get 5-8ft wide ( perhaps to 10' if you left all the offsets attached ) maybe plant it 5-7ft away from the Brahea, depending on how big it is atm.. This way it won't crowd it and it will be easier to get to  ..to clear out any unwanted offsets that try and grow towards the Brahea, etc...  Feel free to post some pictures of the area in question, to get a better idea of how much space you're working with..

-Nathan

[Tracy]

On 5/12/2019 at 5:02 PM, Patrick said:

I'm trying to get a gauge for what this will eventually become

I'm going to assume you want to know how big Agave Blue Flame will get. They are vigorous pup producers.  The ones in the photo are offsets from plants I grew in my previous home.  Also be aware that they don't remain upright and will want to crawl away from the spot you originally plant them, with new plants emerging at the base going in other directions.  For size perspective the blocks in the wall behind it are standard 8"x8"x16".  At some point I will have to lop off the head wondering out into the street, but have plenty more behind it.

[Tracy]

12 hours ago, Tracy said:

At some point I will have to lop off the head wondering out into the street, but have plenty more behind it.

Maybe curiosity has caused them to "wonder" about life in the street but I meant to say the heads "wandering" into the street would succumb to the lopping shears at some point.  Either the lopping shears or someday they will learn about cars to the dismay of my neighbors.

[Merlyn]

On 5/14/2019 at 7:56 PM, Tracy said:

I'm going to assume you want to know how big Agave Blue Flame will get. They are vigorous pup producers.  The ones in the photo are offsets from plants I grew in my previous home

If you have any extra pups, I'd love to get a hold of one!  I've been looking for over a year and no one has them locally, or apparently online!  I have a "Boutin Blue," a "Kara's Stripe," and a couple of other Attenuata types.  But I haven't found a Blue Flame yet!   

[Tracy]

I didn't realize how big these can get if you let them.  I just was looking at one of my original plants.  Not only has it crawled completely out of the planter and onto a concrete patio, it has also become taller and wider than I expected.  Still no flower and this plant is somewhere around 10 -12 years old  from a 3 gallon.  Many pups have been removed from it's base stem and transplanted over that period.

[dalmatiansoap]

Beautiful plants. Probably hard to find in this part of the World. Nevertheless, worth searching.