Agave, Aloe, or Century Plant
Agave species (AGAVACEAE)
Planting and Growing Agave
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow agave, aloe, or century plant in the accompanying table’s tabs:
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- Flowers, foliage, and fruit of agave, aloe, or century plant
- Growing conditions for agave, aloe, or century plant
- When and where to plant agave, aloe, or century plant
- How to plant agave, aloe, or century plant
- How to prune and control growth of agave, aloe, or century plant
- Watering, fertilizing, and care of agave, aloe, or century plant
- Landscape uses of agave, aloe, or century plant
- Pest and disease control for agave, aloe, or century plant
Growing Agave
Several cultivars of slow-growing, mounding, succulent, evergreen shrubs, 18–60 in. (45–150 cm) tall and wide, with powdery, gray, blue green, fleshy, arching, lance-shaped, pointed, often toothed and sometimes thready or hairy leaves, 6–60 in. (15–150 cm) long, armed with sharp terminal spines.
Agave Planting and Care Guide
Flowers and Fruit
Many fragrant, showy, cream, greenish white, yellow flowers, to 3 in. (75 mm) wide, in upright, branching clusters on a central woody, spiking stalk, 4–18 ft. (1.2–5.5 m) tall, in summer, with leathery, round fruit, to 1/2 in. (12 mm) wide, in autumn.
Best Climates
U.S.D.A. Plant Hardiness Zones 8–10. Tender.
Soil Type and Fertility
Damp to dry, well-drained soil. Fertility: Average–low. 6.5–7.5 pH. Soil for container plantings should be sterile.
Where and How to Plant
Full to filtered sun. Spacing varies by species.
Proper Care
Easy. Keep damp; allow soil to dry completely between waterings. Drought tolerant. Avoid fertilizing, pruning. Propagate by budding, bulbils, division, seed, suckers.
About This Species
Good choice for accents, containers, hedges, screens in arid, desert, seaside gardens. Attracts birds, hummingbirds. Borer, mealybug, scale and fungal disease susceptible.
Warning:
Sap of Agave species may cause skin and eye irritation in sensitive individuals. Always wear rubber gloves to prune or propagate plants.