A Caribbean Garden

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I have always loved the striking, architectural forms and artistic detail of agaves. In this respect, I have been quite a contrast to the majority of the people in the Caribbean, who dislike agaves and treat them as weeds, or at best, security hedges. I suppose it’s because many people’s ideas of a garden-clipped hedges and rolling lawns with neat flowers, palms in a row-were imported and handed down from the days of colonialism-the same way baby care techniques were.
That’s why as a baby I was swaddled in a woolen blanket, with wool booties and cap-all specially imported from England- before being taken outside-never mind that the temperature here is always 64-85 degrees F, not chilly Britain in winter where an unwrapped baby could catch its death from pneumonia.

So, it was so refreshing on my recent visit to San Francisco to find like minded gardeners-as agaves and succulents are all the rage there now. I also love reading all the garden US and UK blogs and articles on the xeriscape garden. So, here is my fledgling collection of agaves, along with some info on their source.

My very first agave was the sisalana, traditionally used to make rope and cultivated in plantations. I have posted pics of my 5 year old specimen in bloom. Source: side of road.

Blooms and bulbils





I recently bought the excellent book Designing with Succulents, by Debra Lee Baldwin and noted the agave/bougainvillea combo pictured-hey I did that one years ago!



I got this one, I guess Americana, at the courier’s office about 7 years ago. I asked if I could pull out some pups and the guy looked at me as if I were crazy for actually wanting the plants. He warned “it would run all over the yard”. Well, of course there is a thing called containment in the ground and container planting, but I didn’t bother to explain that. I am glad I pulled out a few pups there and then, as soon after the entire clump was removed and some much less drought tolerant, and in my opinion, less attractive, plants were installed. The new plants look terrible in the dry season.



I love the cool powder blue



A couple agaves I got at the nursery-some sort of Americana and I suppose the second one is filifera.






I got several desmetiana at the nursery and agricultural center about a year ago. Very elegant form with smooth edges, my only regret is I didn’t get any all green ones.



The Deputy Governor is another agave fan, and I bought this, lophanta, from him at a charity sale last April. It had two pups which I divided; the medium pup is now the size of the mother plant when I bought. The mother plant is now 12 inches wide. Not bad for $5. This does look like a rather dangerous agave, and I will have this strictly as a container plant.




At Flora Grubb Nursery I got
Bovicornuta, potatorum and blue glow. Alas they are small pups, and so need a year or 2 to fully come into form.

At gosuccluent.com I got stricta and attenuata. Since they are small offsets I will need to use images from Wikipedia commons

Stricta (photo by Herve Febvre)



Attenuata or foxtail agave-a soft leaved, thornless agave



As for my plans for my grown agaves, I have been inspired by several garden design books and also http://www.penick.net/digging/

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