I have two blue agaves (A. tequilana) that are in concrete urns against the East side of my house. I have several of them, so thought I would experiment with these two as far as cold hardiness goes.
Last night it got down to 29 and while one has some burn, the other has none. They did better than I expected and it is supposed to get down below freezing tonight too.
I live in Kure Beach, NC, about 1 hour north of Myrtle Beach, SC.
Barb
Some agaves can take a lot of frost-at least into the high 20's. What are the red balloon things?
You mean the pink flamingos?
Gotta have pink flamingos! :))
Yep! I have 6.
This guy, (the blue'ish one) came through the two nights of below 30 temps with no damage also.
I did bring some in to start some new plants just in case, though. Anybody know what it is?
Oops! Helps to attach the picture.....
Oh, now I see they are flamingos! So cute!
First, love pink flamingos. :) Second, frost damage is usually due to condensation that settles on the leaves and then freezes....if you cover them with a blanket (not plastic) the night before, it keeps them dry and usually will protect them through freak frosts (not on a regular basis!). The variegate agave shown in the picture might be an Agave lophantha or Agave americana...if it has spikes on the leaves, it's an agave...not a false agave...it's pretty, protect it from frost!
It's Agave amaericana 'Verigata' and is hardy here.
I do have an A. lophantha right next to that container in the ground. I'm a sucker for a pretty Agave!
Barb
I love Agaves. Someone gave me this one: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/161753/ But it froze one very cold winter when I forgot to bring it into the garage. :(
Oh no! I lost a gorgeous one last year for the same reason.
First picture is before the freeze, the next one is after. :(
I'm pretty sure I watered it before the freeze hit. I didn't know then that you shouldn't water a succulent before cold temps hit. That may have helped in its demise.
Barb
As I recall, mine got wet from a heavy rain and then a sudden freeze followed which was the death knell for it. I hated that. :(
Agave in first photos is Agave sisalana, not tequiliana… a very cold sensitive species (though tequiliana is also sort of a wimpy species when it comes to cold, but not nearly as wimpy as sisalana, which can only handle a few degrees below freezing).
Oh! Well dang. It was mislabeled then. Thanks Palmbob.
Any way I can edit the title of this thread?
Barb
you can click unwatch and you will not see it any more unless you choose to go to it.
I do not think that plant is A. sisalana. Its leaves are blue - sisalana's leaf color is green - a very non blue green, and except for the variegates currently swamping all the big box stores labeled as A. sisalana variegata I have never come across a sisalana with such bendy leaves - its leaves are very stiff and fold before they bend. A picture (1st) of my still pretty small A. sisalana is attached.
I agree it also does not represent what is typically described as A. tequilana - but some plants did make the rounds also among the big box stores labeled as such that look exactly like the plant in the OP. See pictures (2nd and 3rd) of an example of said plant and the pot it came in.
I would say though, that A. tequilana definitely is way more of a bendy leaf plant than typical sisalanas especially when in the shade - my plant which is camera shy because it is recovering from some severe sun burn (A. tequilana does not like Phoenix summer sun) has pretty bendy leaves right now, but it comes with the characteristic upward (towards the leaf tip) pointing teeth.
Mislabeling is the most likely conclusion - or it is a hybrid - even Gentry in 'the Agaves of Continental North America' mentions a toothless plant that some considered part of the A. tequilana complex of plants that he suggests is a hybrid with A. kewensis which he thought should be considered separate. And it only takes one sport to be tissue cultured and put on the market to give people a completely different sense of what A. tequilana should be. Who would not want a toothless blue Agave?
Not being an expert I can't speculate on exactly what the species of Barbie's first plant would be, but I have noticed that nurseries tend to label any bluish plant with the same general shape as A. tequilana, regardless of other features. Mislabeling is rampant out there. To add to the confusion there are also green forms of the tequila agave (I have one) which tend to be found under other names, mislabeled the other way around.
There are blue forms of A sislana, too.
Palmbob you are probably right. I have not seen any (which of course does not mean anything ;) ) - I have seen some that are darker green, but never any true blue ones and as far as I can tell the leaf posture of typical sisalana is very distinctive: the very stiff long upright 'spikes'. Every sisalana I have ever seen has had those, even plants in the deep shade, whereas the plant in the OP most definitely does not have that.
I guess my main point is: if you are going to argue that it does not look like typical tequilana - which if you look at the literature has a lot of different forms because of how plants were brought into culture for tequila production and their names being lumped (and forgotten), the plants being hybridized, etc - batches of scientific literature are currently being devoted to trying to sort it out - then to call it sisalana, which it would clearly also not be a typical specimen of can just as easily be called into question. Especially if you read the description in Gentry's book which paints it as a very distinctive Agave known from a very small area from which it was exported for agricultural purposes because of its excellent fiber.
One thing is sure: they are both frost sensitive plants. However I would say that typical sisalana takes low Ts better then the blue plant (at least my blue plant). It got down to 32F here only once last winter (yeah, I know how dare we call it winter :) ) and the sisalana was fine, while the blue plant had similar damage to the plant in the OP.
I am completely fine with the conclusion that the plant in the OP is not typical tequilana, but I would also contend that the alternative of sisalana would also not represent a typical representative of that species, so at that point maybe just calling it a (not the) blue agave - because it is blue - describes it best.
A. sisalana will sustain serious frost damage below 25°F/-4°C. Maybe at higher temps as well.
Gentry also makes the point that it's not clear the plant is even a species. It probably isn't, actually. Based on ploidy (he cites 3 sources) the plant is almost certainly a hybrid, or mixed up in some way. Maybe just very highly domesticated. It's not able to produce sisalana seed. This is where the usual species concept breaks down a little.
"The" blue agave? Is there such a thing? :)
This message was edited Nov 30, 2014 1:41 PM
