Agave Species, Twin Flower Agave, Twin Flower Century Plant, Maguey

We have four agave geminiflora in our landscaping and think they are beautiful and unique. One of our plants is about two feet and round...Read More shaped and is blooming, inflorescence I guess is the term. Does anyone know if the bloom stick will cause it die? Can it be saved by removing the stick in it's early stage?

I had the opportunity to see this plant in it's native habitat. It was a significant surprise, to the say the least. Instead of a dry roc...Read Moreky plain or the side of a cliff, this Agave inhabits the edges and right in the middle of dry river beds that are obviously wet during the rainy season. They didn't seem to grow far from the river bed either. The amount of shade produced by the large Oaks was also a surprise. It wouldn't surprise me if this Agave would benefit from some afternoon shade and summer irrigation in cultivation. The location is between Tequila, Jalisco and Tepic, Nayarit on highway 15 near where the Mex200D highway to Puerta Vallarta heads to the coast. The dry river bed is only a few metres from the highway 15.

Beautiful and "different-looking" (i.e. not your typical rosette) Agave, but I don't understand how folks manage to keep 'em alive. Talk ...Read Moreabout defenseless, I stuck a 5-gal sized plant in the ground, and it was half gone within two weeks -- rabbits and wood rats. I may just as well have planted a head of lettuce. If I try one again, I'll pot it, and keep the pot off the ground and on a pedestal.

Zone 9b coastal Otago New Zealand.

I picked up a couple of bare rooted geminiflora pups off the net, and they arrived pret...Read Morety dry and gasping. For some reason they look 'tender' and I worried that Id lose them but a year on, theyre flourishing and Im very happy with them.
They hold a lot of leaves at once, and eventually grow into a spiny hedgehog ball, looking very striking in a rockery or massed under larger succulents. My specimens are not very hairy or filimenty, their leaves being perfectly smooth and olive green with a single terminal spine, having an almost round cross section. Leaves radiate out from a rounded caudex-looking base. They are flexible and succulent, and if underwatered or sun stressed will actually shrivel a little to let you know it's feeling pinched, which is handy. Leaves fatten up again with water. Looks cool even when small.
I really like this guy; it forms a great eccentric contrast to other uniformly silvery agaves and when mature are a real punctuation mark in the garden. With a little attention to even watering, they become almost perfectly circular, though adversity will abruptly shorten the newest layer of leaves causing irregularity.
They present a low hazard level as far as spiny injuries are concerned, just dont forget about them when you're leaning down to weed!
Seems pretty cold hardy, mine have spent all of 09's cold and soggy winter outside (in pots) without looking stressed or rotty.
They look great potted on pillars or featured on a prominent rock.
Take wind and hail really well.
Nice!