So what happened

You may remember I posted about a plant in our garden last year  ...

Agave americana

Blogpost dated 26th July 2021

and with an update 5th August 2021.

Here are a couple of aerial photos taken by our daughter using her drone, looking down onto the very Top of the plant

We enjoyed seeing this grow and get taller and taller, reaching around 25ft.  Of course, we always knew it was doing this growing/flowering as a final farewell - they grow - they flower - they die off.

It was inevitable with storms that came in during November 2021, that we would lose the plant.  And sure enough we got up one morning to find it was Down!   Our surprise was that it hadn't snapped off, but instead, the whole plant had toppled over (thankfully still within our garden).  

We got on and started clearing it up - knowing it would take several trips to the recycling centre to clear away completely

and No, it hadn't hit husband round the head ⬋

So bit, by bit, husband cut the plant

(I photographed...and helped by putting pieces of plant into various bins)

Click the image below for a 1min. video of husband getting to grips with this plant...and watch out for his surprise when he finally cuts through it!

                                         

The small plants you can see in the middle/lower part of the above image, are the baby ones, so they have been potted up.

It was a lovely plant - albeit spikey - and had taken years to grow, but was fun to see it grow the flower part.  Don't worry, even though we saved some of the baby ones, we do have a couple of others in our garden.

At Christmas, we got a nice surprise gift from our neighbours,

who had taken a photograph of the plant from their angle during a sunset.

Another update on the Agave Americana

 Measured it yesterday and now grown to 25ft

Agave Americana

Finally the flower we have waited for...

We've had an  Agave americana  cactus looking plant for  17 years now and have hoped we would get to see it flower.

When I say flower, it grows a long stalk which produces branches with a flower on the ends. The whole thing is looked upon as a flower.  Sadly, and usually, when it has 'flowered' the plant then dies.  I guess it puts so much energy into the process that it finishes it off.  However, we have got 'juniors' from it, already planted around our garden.

We were delighted when about 6 weeks ago we noticed the beginnings of a flower, but have been amazed at how fast it grows.  

It goes through an "asparagus looking phase" and is now at the "asparagus crossed with a broccoli phase".

We've taken photos along the way...

6th June :

You can only just see the lighter growth in the middle of the plant - the flower part - and going on the overall growth, we reckon in this photo the flower must have had a week of growing time.

prior to this...I had thought the plant was dying, you can see how sad the leaves are looking, but obviously it was a sign that the flower was on the way.

20th June:         This next photo shows how quickly it grows 

6th July:                   It was obviously trying to race the sun-brolly!

Onward and upward as they say....

11th July:    we had been measuring (as best we could) with a long extendable pole and in this next photo I've noted the height of the plant (I'm just to give some scale)

22nd July:  From the previous photo on the 11th, to this next photo on the 22nd, you can see how the branches have grown.  To the right, you can see one of the 'juniors'.

At this point, the plant is still growing upwards and the branches are extending, so who knows where it will be eventually.  Perhaps we should have put a warning light on it for aircraft! 

I will keep you updated on its progress, although we have given up trying to measure it - the extendable pole is too short!