Requiem for a Blue Agave

Having this huge plant in front of our house has been a pleasure, and I will miss it. Elevated behind a wall at the top of our driveway, it is one of the first things we see as we drive up to the house. Its beautiful blue/grey color, it's massive size and the way the leaves imprint their toothy edges on each other have made it constantly interesting to me.

When a friend told us about six months ago that he thought it was going to bloom, I didn't believe him. They are often called century plants because they bloom only once and  It takes all their energy to produce a giant flowering spike. and then they die. Although this process doesn't usually take a century, it can take 20 to 40 years. We didn't know how long it has been here, but it has only been four and a half years for us and we weren't ready for it to die.

Blue agaves produce nectar within their barrel like base, called the piña. The nectar is used as a sweetener, but more famously, it is used to make tequila. The more water and attention the plant gets, the quicker an agave blooms, so, although they need very little water to survive in the desert, when they are grown for the purpose of making tequila they are usually harvested in six to ten years. Like grapes, it is not the size of the piña that matters, it is the sugar content. 

Agaves don't have to flower to be harvested for tequila; it is age which allows the plant to accumulate starches which are converted to sugar for tequila. We think our agave, along with several others we have seen around town are flowering this year because of our record rains last winter.

Because our plant and its flower spike is so huge and is leaning dangerously over the wall we have decided to have it taken out before it uproots itself and potentially causes a lot of damage. I have been taking pictures since we first noticed the spike in April and am now going to spend the next few days photographing its last days. The flowering spike is free of barbs and attracts lots of hummingbirds, so today, although the flower isn't very spectacular, the life cycle of this amazing plant and its dying flower is.