My name is Mike Eden. I’m the Business Development Coordinator here at CARETAKER LANDSCAPE AND TREE MANAGEMENT. Every week I send out a new ‘Plant of the Week’ to our team and partners to help educate us on the plants we care for in our fields of work. Please tune in for this amazing opportunity to become more familiar with the plants you see every day in your local landscape.

Also, if there is a specific plant you would like to see featured, or just want to learn more about, please don’t hesitate to ask.  If you don’t know the name just shoot me a picture and I’ll take it from there. Email me at meden@caretakerinc.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week I am featuring the Agave parryi, or ‘Parry’s Agave’   

FUN FACT:  Aged agave produce a 15 to 20 foot stalk with bright yellow blooms and are believed to have the fastest growing appendage in the entire botanical Kingdom, growing all 15 to 20 feet in less than a month, wow!  Unfortunately they then die after blooming, as all leaf and root resources are put into the stalk, flowers, and seeds. The good news is they can be propagated by either offset or seed from that very same stock. That means, ‘”free plants for everyone!“

•         Common Name: Parry’s Agave
•         Botanical Name: Agave parryi
•         Native Distribution: Arizona, Chihuahuan Desert
  ·         Hardiness: 15°
  ·         Sun: Full Sun
  ·         Water: Low
  ·         Growth (rate, size and form): Slow growing, 2 feet by 2 feet, Compact rosette
  ·         Foliage (e/d, color, texture): Evergreen, Gray-green, Coarse texture
  ·         Flowers (color & season): Bright yellow, Summer
  ·         Comments (litter, thorns, allergenic): Low little, Sharp tips
  ·         Special Features (wildlife, other): Particularly decorative, Distinctive leaf impressions

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Here are some guides to help us when reading these Shrub, Trees, Cacti, etc of the Day.

*   Hardiness – this number will indicate the low temperature that the plant is known to tolerate before suffering serious injury or death.  It is sometimes referred to as the plant’s cold hardiness.

*   Sun – plants vary in how much sun or shade they need to grow.
*   Full/reflected sun – indicates the toughest plants that will tolerate extreme conditions.  This occurs when the sun’s heat and light are intensified, such as against a south or west wall.
*   Full sun – means that a plant can tolerate exposure to eight or more hours of sun each day.
*   Partial sun – for plants that do best with a moderate amount of sun.

*   Shade – means that a plant does best with minimum exposure to the sun

*   Water – all plants that I will be emailing over are low-water use plants, but some get by with less water than others and these will be indicated as very low, low or moderate.
Have a great week!