Agave americana

Century Plant, Maguey, American Aloe

In a brutal, punishing, and resource-scarce environment like drought-stricken Southern California, how is a plant to not only survive, but thrive? Many of the plants I’ve written about depend on humans for nourishment and protection. The other option? Become brutal, punishing, and incredibly resourceful. Here is a plant that exemplifies all three: The American Agave.

A cluster of small agaves growing semi-wild in the “forest”.

My backyard is a hard place to survive. The soil is a fine sand, prone to erosion and with a remarkable ability to harden into a rock-like texture once dampened. Most plants have trouble taking root and keeping healthy once they’re introduced into the area. Not the agave though! My property is packed with these tough survivors, ranging from small specimens planted around the yard to real giants. They live in what I call the “agave forest,” a dense semi-wild strip between my place and the next yard over. These huge, old, agaves live up to the common name Century Plant. They tower over me to the extent that their full majesty is difficult to capture, similar to giant Redwoods. Being in their presence is like walking among dinosaurs. They even have some pretty ferocious claws:

        
Not-so-gentle giants posing artistically for my backyard photo shoot.

Each leaf is tipped with a shockingly sharp point that punctures denim and leaves bruises. The raking claws along the side of the leaf are even more formidable with their recurved tips that can scratch an arm with the angriest of felines:

Damage incurred while transplanting the medium-sized plant below. 

Even a small plant can really beat you up, hence my desire to get the little ones in my yard into some kind of order before they simply become to large to move. The huge ones are clearly here to stay. I’ve read that the name “century plant” is an exaggeration– The plants live only up to 30 years before flowering, their last act leading to their demise. The flower stalks can grow up to 9 meters tall!

Transplanting an Agave

While moving around the little plants in my yard, I’ve learned a lot about what else they have going on. It turns out they’ve got a whole other life underground. Because of the hard soil, the tenacious root systems, and the downright aggressiveness of the plants, each transplant takes several hours of hard (and dangerous!) work. Here’s one I did last weekend:

These long rhizomes or “suckers” spread out in the earth, with the pointed tips developing into baby plants where they emerge. Knowing about these, you can picture a whole system beneath clusters like the one in the agave forest. It’s fascinating to see how the wrapped structure of the leaves carries through in the rhizome. 

I attempted to keep the suckers attached, thinking they would also be a good source of nutrients for the plant, but to my surprise they detach very easily. Their primary goal is releasing new plants into the surrounding environment. Of the 6 suckers attached to the plant above, I was only able to keep two. You can see that the rest of the root structure, though extensive, is dwarfed by the rhizomes.

Much of the energy of the plant must go into producing these. I’m still not sure whether it uses them for sustenance while they are attached, but just in case I kept the two remaining ones carefully intact as I put the plant into its new home:The plan is to create a natural fence between my property and the next one over by moving the small and medium-sized plants in the middle of the yard into a neat row. This will also keep them from completely dominating my other landscaping plans as they increase in size! If the monster-sized ones from the agave forest are only 30 years old, that’s going to happen quickly.

Lots of work, but lots of fun!

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