Growing Agave Bulbils
One of the best qualities of Agave is their many forms of reproduction: seed, offsets and even ready made plant-lets (bulbils). Several of the Agave in our yard are putting up flower stalks as I write this - one of them started last Spring and was only just removed a week ago. Now I'm knee deep in bulbils.
By July a variegated Agave celsii in the backyard was in spectacular, full bloom and attracting all sorts of pollinators.
By early September of 2022 the flowers had been replaced by hundreds (thousands?) of bulbils
Not every Agave produces bulbils so I was pleasantly surprised to see them developing.
Over the next few months the stalk slowly fell sideways onto the shade cloth and rested there as if on a hammock. Yours truly was too lazy to do anything about it until November when the flower stalk of an Agave bovicornuta had grown enough to begin pushing the shade cloth skyward. That's right - one planting pushing the shade cloth down - the other pushing up.
Bulbils grew on the lower portion of the stalk but never developed the branching seen toward the top.
By early November I'd removed some of the bulbils and was growing them in a makeshift greenhouse.
In December I started a tray of bulbils in the grow tent which generally has a friendlier environment. After a few months they looked better than the ones I'd been growing in the (unheated) green house.
As of a few months ago several of the original batch had been transplanted into their own containers.
These have been doing ok but the unheated greenhouse has gotten as cold as 37F at night so their growth has been slower than those in the grow tent which seems to stay around 75F and humidity of ~ 65%.
Here are some of the original batch which still have not been transplanted to individual containers.
Planting the "Grow Tent" bulbils turned out to be a chore since their roots had grown extensively and become entangled.
Unfortunately I don't have enough room to transplant all these at the moment (anyone out there leasing greenhouse space?!). I limited my self to transplanting a single tray of 4in pots.
My favorite! Another bulbil is completely cream colored.
This tray of unplanted bulbils all showed signs of roots forming - although it can be hard to tell what's a root vs just a bump. Not sure when (or if) I'll get around to planting these.
Happy Propagating
Update 6/2023
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Agave bulbil grown in a plug container |
Some of these bulbils have been living in a plug tray for months and months. They have also been periodically under-watered and over-watered. They survived but have not thrived compared to their siblings grown in open trays.
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Agave celsii for sale in 4inch pots |
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Agave recently transplanted from rooting trays |
Update 11/2023
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One of the trays of Agave that are ready for up sizing. |
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One of the bigger Agave celsii |
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Up-potted and moving to a new spot |
Update January 2024
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So what do you plan to do with all of these? Plant them? Sell them? Inquiring minds are curious.
ReplyDeleteHiya - I'll grow some into larger specimens and sell to local nurseries and / or online (at dryoasisplants.com or facebook groups). I will probably also donate some to my local plant club and gift some to neighbors.
ReplyDeleteI have a bloom stalk on an Agave mitis 'Multicolor', which I think is an synonym for the variegated Agave celsi. It produced its stalk in November but then appeared to enter stasis - it doesn't have many branches at all but I'm hoping that's temporary and that it'll become more robust as temperatures get warmer. I was somewhat overwhelmed by the volume of bulbils I got from 3 other agaves so I probably should be careful what I wish for, especially as I've got 2 other agaves with developing bloom stalks.
ReplyDeleteoh interesting that yours started so much later and then stopped. I also have some bloom stalks on a few other agaves - a few of which produce bulbils and another produces seed. Its easy to get overwhelmed - especially because it feels so wasteful to through them out!
DeleteThat's great you are doing something with them. I just throw mine out, mostly.
ReplyDeleteSeems like your yard is filling up a little. ;^)