agave update

We inter­rupt our series on the gar­dens at the Hunt­ing­ton Library with this quick update on the progress of the bloom spike of my Agave atten­u­ata.

At this point there flow­ers have opened on about three feet of the spike. The low­est ones are begin­ning to wither.

So far the blooms are prov­ing to be extremely pop­u­lar with the hon­ey­bees. (Notice the bee on the flower and ignore the bright red car in the back­ground. Thank you.)

In this last image you can even see the pollen that the bee has attached to its back legs for trans­port back to the hive.

Thanks for your patience. With the next post we return to the gar­dens at the Huntington…

Pre­vi­ous posts on this plant:
One agave, eight ways (Decem­ber Bloom Day)
When plants collide

December 31 2009 06:30 am | Categories: my garden • plant profiles | Tags: • •

6 Responses to “agave update”

  1. Brad B on 31 Dec 2009 at 10:43 am #

    I sam­pled a lot of hon­eys at the SF Flower and Gar­den show this last spring. I’m won­der­ing what agave honey would taste like.

  2. Susie on 31 Dec 2009 at 4:22 pm #

    Great New Year’s Eve post! Let’s hope the bees start a resur­gence in 2010.

  3. Loree/danger garden on 31 Dec 2009 at 6:47 pm #

    WOW! Beau­ti­ful! I am rather jeal­ous and will be check­ing back for fur­ther updates. Do you know, is A. atten­u­ata one of the agaves that devel­ops plantlets on the bloom spike after the flow­ers are spent?

  4. Pam/Digging on 31 Dec 2009 at 7:15 pm #

    Fab­u­lous. Looks like the bees are hav­ing a happy new year, and I hope you do too!

  5. Town Mouse on 31 Dec 2009 at 8:13 pm #

    Amaz­ing plant. And what a sur­prise to find bees this time of year. I saw a few stum­bling around myself today…Meanwhile, I had to scrape the car yesterday.

    Happy New Year!

  6. lostlandscape on 01 Jan 2010 at 1:38 pm #

    Brad, I’d be curi­ous about agave honey, too. We had a hive find its way into the back yard for a few years a decade ago. Nearby was a cas­sava tree. The honey was OK, noth­ing special.

    Susie, thanks! I’d read some­where about the mys­ter­ies of hive col­lapse being solved and linked to pollen that was low in pro­tein. Basi­cally the bees were starv­ing. Hope­fully the agave pollen is more nutritious.

    Loree, I’m not sure if this agave will pro­duce pups on the bloom spike, but the plant is really gen­er­ous about pro­duc­ing off­sets below the main rosette that flow­ers. We’ve been giv­ing away big chunks of this plant.

    Pam, thank you. Have an amaz­ing 2010 yourself.

    TM, the bees some­times take a while to wake up and ven­ture out, but unless it’s rain­ing, they make a “bee-line” (yuck yuck, I’m sorry…) for the plant…

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