Agave 'Blue Glow'
Agave 'Blue Glow' is a popular hybrid Agave, a cross between Agave attenuata and Agave ocahui. It is prized for its smooth, blue-green leaves whose fine margins glow with a translucent red and gold edge when backlit by the sun, giving the plant its name Blue Glow Agave. Compact, symmetrical and (unlike many agaves) armed with only a single terminal spine, it is one of the most sought-after ornamental agaves for gardens and containers.
Description
Agave 'Blue Glow' forms a tidy, solitary rosette that typically reaches around 30–60 cm across, usually somewhat broader than tall, at maturity. The stiff, upright leaves are a soft blue-green, narrow and gently tapering, with perfectly smooth faces. The signature feature is the leaf margin: a fine, reddish line bordered by a thin band of yellow that catches and transmits light, so the whole rosette appears to be outlined in glowing amber when the sun sits low behind it.
From its ocahui parent it inherits nearly toothless margins and a single, short terminal spine rather than the fierce marginal teeth of many agaves, making it a friendlier plant to site near paths and seating. Like all agaves it is monocarpic: an established rosette eventually sends up a tall flowering stalk once in its life and then dies, though this can take many years.
Cultivation
Care follows the parent species — see Agave for general guidance. 'Blue Glow' wants bright light to full sun, which brings out the strongest leaf colour and keeps the rosette compact; in too much shade the leaves stretch and the glowing margin fades. Grow it in a fast-draining, gritty mix and water only when the soil has dried out, tapering off in winter. It appreciates warmth and dislikes prolonged cold and wet; protect it from hard frost, and in cold climates grow it in a container that can be moved under cover.
Because it does not sucker, 'Blue Glow' stays as a single clean rosette rather than forming a spreading clump, which is part of its appeal as an architectural specimen. See Watering and Repotting for general technique.
Propagation
Rarely offsetting, 'Blue Glow' is not easily increased at home; commercial stock is typically produced by tissue culture. Occasionally a mature plant will produce small bulbils on its flowering stalk at the end of its life, and these can be grown on. Seed does not come true for a hybrid, so named plants are propagated vegetatively rather than from seed. See Propagation — offsets for handling any pups or bulbils that do appear.
See also
- Agave — the genus overview
- Agave attenuata · Agave ocahui — the parent species
- Soil and potting mix · Watering · Repotting · Propagation — offsets