How and why to plant agaves in Phoenix, Arizona

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My garden in the desert is an oasis, which means that I don't plant any cactuses (cacti?) there. Well, kinda, I like agaves. And I strongly recommend them, but you gotta know what you're doing or you'll make an awful mess of things.

The first thing that you'll need to do is your homework. Go visit some gardens first, don't go charging into your local garden center and start grabbing the first thing you see. Agaves come in lots of different shapes and sizes, and what I have here are miniatures, and that's what you want. If you don't do your homework, chances are good that you'll buy one that will look fine for a couple of seasons, and then turn into a monster that creates a serious problem for you. I've seen monster agaves patches that are so deadly that the only way to get rid of them would be with heavy equipment, and that can happen in just a few seasons.

So calm down, take a breath. If you live in the Phoenix area there are a lot of wonderful gardens that you can visit, and these gardens have everything labelled. Go there with your camera (it's in your phone, remember?) and a notepad to write down stuff. Take photos of the plants, take photos of the labels. Then you can go to the garden center, or better still buy a plant there if they're for sale. Yes, you'll be surprised at how expensive miniatures agaves are, but that's true of all miniature plants. And you want to be absolutely sure that you're getting exactly the right one.

The agave you see in the pic up there is a big miniature. I've had it for many years, and while it's only a couple of feet wide, it's big for the type of agave it is, which is (hang on, I have to go look it up) an Agave parryi var. truncata. By the way, all garden centers have tags on the plants (even Home Depot) which has the common name, and the Latin name. If you want to be absolutely, double-dog sure that you're getting the right one, you have to take out your reading glasses, and read a little bit of Latin.

And before I forget, be careful with this plant! Agaves are terribly sharp, and you can grievously injure yourself if you're not careful. I plant them several feet away from where people need to walk, and I allow space for them to grow. But even miniatures grow, so sometimes you gotta replant, and move them back a bit more. Wear your leather gloves, and take your time - the needles on the ends can poke right through you, and you don't want that! Even if they barely touch your bare skin it can hurt like crazy. OK, enough about being careful!

So get an agave or two, put them in the ground, give them some additional water (they aren't a native cactus of Arizona) and enjoy!

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