Love the Dudleyas Baja. I really like the ones that their forms look like echeverias.

Deebie said:Also, it gets huge.

No, your plant is probably smaller than attenuata. I would say medium sized, like 3 feet or so. You need to keep an eye out for when it starts offsetting, and remove those offsets over time. That's the only way it can get big, really, and it takes a long while. We have both normal and variegated versions here and they are similar in terms of size and behavior in cultivation (pretty tough plants in my experience). The urn-like shape of this plant is very distinctive and quite pretty in my opinion.

For those questing after attenuata, be aware that it is a particularly wimpy plant with respect to cold hardiness, compared to other agaves.

Here is my huge Furcraea with a beginning spike this past summer. It eventually had a ton of babies about 12 ft up.... I have potted a few of them up and the spike is now gone, the plant itself is slowly dying.

Audrey, I'm not sure what to call your small agave. Maybe not de-meesteriana because of the total lack of marginal spines and no curvature in the leaves. It could be young and change when it grows up.

We have two native Dudleyas here (ie. growing wild 10 yards from the house). One (D. brittonii) is that rosette succulent which resembles an Echeveria. It can be pale green or powder blue. The other (D. attenuata) has small powder-white "fingers". Their flowers are far less exciting than the average Echeveria (to humans, anyway.... hummingbirds find them just as delectable). But when they're doing well they make up for that in sheer numbers.

Baja, I don't want the plant to grow fast at all. I want them to stay small, okay, manageable for as long as possible. So, since I already see offsets on the non-variegated one, I should leave them be, right? But, I do have the sneaky feeling that as soon as my best friends sees the pups, she's going to beg for one, (she missed it when I showed her the plant, as it was very small at the time). That's what we do to each other.

You can nip the pups whenever you repot next, if you want. There is no hurry as they will become independent quicker if they are larger to start with.

You can definitely control the size of the plant by limiting the size of the pot. Bear in mind that landscape plants get much larger and grow much faster than pot-bound container plants. What tends to happen with this particular agave when it stays pot-bound in a small container is that it stops growing wider and starts burning through the lower leaves (they die back from the tips). So if you see this behavior down the road, then you may have an idea why it's happening. Not a big deal but good to know.

Funny that you mention that Baja. The non-variegated plant is pot bound, but I wanted to wait until spring before I repotted. Several of the lower leaves do have tip damage, which is just assumed was due to mishandling between shipment and the store or even to sunburn. They were sitting outside when I bought them. I still have a possible 2 more months of cold weather. Most of my succulents are still outdoors. They are in a shelter position, and I just cover them with a blanket on the coldest nights. We've only had a few nights of below freezing weather so far.

Agree with you Deebie, wait till Spring to mid-Spring before repotting.

Baja_Costero said:Audrey, I'm not sure what to call your small agave. Maybe not de-meesteriana because of the total lack of marginal spines and no curvature in the leaves. It could be young and change when it grows up.

We have two native Dudleyas here (ie. growing wild 10 yards from the house). One (D. brittonii) is that rosette succulent which resembles an Echeveria. It can be pale green or powder blue. The other (D. attenuata) has small powder-white "fingers". Their flowers are far less exciting than the average Echeveria (to humans, anyway.... hummingbirds find them just as delectable). But when they're doing well they make up for that in sheer numbers.

Hmmm.... thank you for looking. I guess it will be a surprise agave Right now it is still adorable. Time will tell. Please stop indulging me on Dudleyas info. I do not need another collecting obsession If you should ever want some echeverias I would love to trade and see how the dudes hold up through our summers. Wait, wait, wait, never mind...... please continue sharing your native beauties. I will enjoy vicariously!

Haha Audrey I hear you about no new genres of plants!!! :)
Here are a couple bloom pics of a Xmas cactus which decided it needed one more time of blooming before spring :)

And there are a few more buds Yahoo!! I love that the base is orange with carmine red elsewhere

Hi Gang, :D

Deebie,
Pretty plants no matter what size they are. Hopefully they'll stay how you like them if you can keep them pot bound. Personally...just me speaking...unless I want more of something I de-pup them as fast as I can.

Baja,
Beautiful succulents as always. How lucky you are to have and enjoy them in your climate.

As for me I'm going to whine Soooo tired of our weather. It gets warm at night around the high 30s low 40s then...it rains for 3 days straight (reason why I haven't been out to photograph my Octopus Agaves for you guys)

AND you guessed it...the temp drops to 35 and below for the next 7 days. So I have wet, water logged, yellowing plants in soaking wet ground that are now going to be ice cold for the next week.

So I'm back to covering, uncovering, covering, uncovering all day and night. Our days aren't much better. Every time the sun comes out it seems to get clouded over and our daily temps are about 8 degrees below normal. Grrrrrr!!

Anyone else having such frustrations?

Even still I am thankful to live where the sun DOES shine for the most part in winter and I don't have snow and our car hasn't turned into a canoe so we can get down the street. I guess I shouldn't complain when I think of others across the country BUT STILL...my plants! Grrrrrrrr!

So there's my whine. I feel better.
Going to go relax and talk to you all later.
Have a great night.
AG

gg5 said:Haha Audrey I hear you about no new genres of plants!!! :)
Here are a couple bloom pics of a Xmas cactus which decided it needed one more time of blooming before spring :)

And there are a few more buds Yahoo!! I love that the base is orange with carmine red elsewhere

Nice flowers Greg. It is all your fault I have my first haworthia. I resisted for soooo many years, but started off with some baby toes. Wish me luck! They looked awful when I got them and I thought they might not make it but they are already have a lot of new growth after only two weeks. I am not holding my breath though. They are indoors now and the windows on the toe tips are huge so I guess they want more sun, but they will have to wait another 6 weeks.

For what it's worth, Dudleyas are definitely not for every climate. They are not tolerant of very hot or cold weather, and they are not tolerant of (much) summer rain. They demand strong light during the darkest months of the year. So sit back and enjoy from a distance if these factors would disqualify you from growing one. Or if you're looking for a place to start (ahem) then you might try D. brittonii, which is a pretty tough plant. The little finger types have the advantage of being easy to propagate as they branch regularly and cuttings root easily.

There are a couple of smaller plants which naturally grow in the desert and those would probably be better starting points if heat is your concern. But really, there's no reason you can't oversummer (seasonal equivalent of overwintering) plants indoors during the hottest/wettest summer months as long as they get strong light, ie. daily sun.

Repotting time for Dudleyas here is usually at the very start of the rainy season, like around December. I repotted 3 or 4 right before our recent torrential rains and they got watered in nicely by mother nature. Perfect timing. Don't try this at home, kids!

Yep..... Nice pics Baja . I am not up for over summering or overwintering any more than I already do. Keep feeding me pics and I will admire at a few hundred miles away

I do care for a lot of plants that some winters are o.k. and some are not. One winter my husband was about ready to burn my dioons and agaves. Looking at extended forecasts I think this is going to be an easier year than they predicted cold wise here. I planted my soap aloes today. (thanks for the I.D. @Cinta ) I hope I will not be digging them back up in feb.

Audrey love your avatar! Very pretty

AG, we feel your pain. If whining/ranting momentarily helps you feel better, that's OK. We're here for you. Here's to hoping that the weather will be more cooperable in 2016. There's no rush on getting the photo. We can wait. There are just somethings that we can do little or nothing about--like bad weather.

Nice blooms, Greg. I thought I had one like your last one last year, but don't remember seeing it this year. Maybe I unknowingly gave it away. I would/should have taken photos of the blooms, but life got in the way.

Hello All,

New to the forum - followed Agave Girl over here from DG - live in Mesa, AZ, but am originally from the Netherlands (move to the US in 1999), grow cacti, agaves, aloes, and select other succulents that will take the AZ low desert summer heat without too much fussing around.
Since there was interest in a picture of an Octopus Agave (A. vilmorriniana), I am attaching a picture of one from someone's yard in my neighborhood. Mine is still a lot smaller, which has the leaves looking very different and less Octopussy... This one is probably about to bolt. They are really nice plants though, take the AZ full summer sun and pretty hardy as well. Like A. de-meesteriana (I am still getting used to that) these plants are relatively quick growers meaning that they also get to flowering relatively quickly, so they do not really live up to the 'Century' plant name...

Looking forward to sharing pictures and experiences of growing cacti and succulents in our respective environments.

Thijs (pronounced: Tice)

Hi Tice !!!

So nice to see you and hear from you again. It'll be like old times again.
I know everyone will be looking forward to seeing all of your great plant photos and will immensely appreciate your expertise and knowledge with the plant identification, Latin names and extending our plant files!

You know that big yellow thing that shines? It's out so I'm going to snap a pic of my 2 bargain Octopus Agaves. They've been residing in my yard for about 7 months but I'm not sure how "old" /mature they were when I bought them. They were pretty good size but have grown quite a bit since I've had them.

Compliment your neighbor please, from me, on their lovely plant!

Be back with a pic.
AG

Again so happy you're here with us.

@mcvansoest
to ATP. Easy to see where these get called 'octopus'. It's not nearly as odd to me as that all-gravel lawn, though .

O.K., got a really busy day today so won't be back until tomorrow but as promised that quick snap of my $5.99 nursery steals. Oh, mcvansoest...I'm sure you remember 'Trixy' my Trichocereus. You haven't seen a picture of him as of late but the last 2 are for you! Look at what a big boy he is and lots of new growth too! I fel like a good plant mommy! (Ahem...We don't discuss the things I've killed)