GardenTrip

How about threads? I love the thready spikes this agave filifera wears. I tried to separate the pup next to its mama, but it didn't want to come loose, and I was afraid to force it. Maybe when I get more experience with agaves I'll feel braver about trying again.

Here's a filifera pup that was growing inside the pot, scrunched up next to the plastic. It's making a very slow recovery since I liberated it. I hope it will eventually open out a bit more than it has over the past two months.

Speaking of pups, here's a lovely agave Americana pup, courtesy of the danger garden. It is putting the baby filifera to shame, growth-wise, having put on several new leaves. I love its great combination of both form and color, with its open rosette shape and its sleek stripes of cream down each leaf edge.

Now we have perfection, in both form and subtle color. This is probably my favorite agave, so far. Agave parryi var. truncata has it all. Can you believe that rosette?

And how about those perfect red thorns and terminal spikes?

Eucalyptus debeuzevillei has lovely gray-green color on its side, but I'm pretty happy with its form this year, too. It added at least four feet over summer. You can see how much higher than the fence it has grown.

The leaves of this ficus carica Negronne have beautiful, long, deep green fingers. It's hard to see how Adam and Eve could have used leaves like that for modesty. But this fig has also grown about four feet this summer, so I'm thrilled, even though its form is pretty rangy. It even has a few figs on it!

I hope you can see how this carex flagellifera 'Toffee Twist" is developing the most delicious coral color on some of its leaves (stems?) this fall.

And the pink in my phormium "Pink Stripe" has deepened so that it's becoming more of a magenta. Along with the gray-green leaves, it's a wonderful contrast.

The Meyer lemon, sitting out in the garden for the summer, is surrounded by toffee twist carex and sage. The lemon leaves are such a bright green by comparison. It's not a tree I would grow for its form, but the lemons ripening on it and its fragrant indoor blossoms through winter let me forgive its slightly ungainly shape.

Here's a final contrast: Agastache 'Acapulco Orange', helichrysum italicum microphyllum and toffee twist carex. I love the way the gray curry plant makes the other two look so rich. Color wins in this graceful grouping.

I've been gardening all my adult life, but there's a horde of plants out there I know nothing about. I've never lived in the southwest, so the agave family is new to me. But I've been gaining an appreciation for them here in Portland, after following some garden blogs like Danger Garden and nestmaker for awhile (links to the right, since I haven't figured out the live link thing.)

For me, agaves might be in the same category as pit bulls or pugs: at first you can't quite figure out what all the fuss is about, but once your eyes get opened to their delights and good points (!), you find yourself actually defending them when you hear people being critical. There's no zealot like a convert, I suppose.

Anyway, I've acquired some agaves - three, to be exact. And in honor of agave week over at Danger Garden they're pictured below.
A. scabra, said to reach 3-5 feet. Hope I planted it far enough away from the sidewalk.

A. bracteosa. I think this looks like a smooth, green octopus. Garden place yet to come.

A. filifera. Love the threads! Maybe a nice pot is the best place for this one.