I love those! Lots of them around here. They’re so amazing.

Happy your boot is off! :)

Very cool!

Yes, I love Agaves too.

So cool! I always talk about them at Longwood as part of my tours. When I point it out, someone always nods knowingly. I jokingly say, "we might have found our tequila drinker." It's never mean-spirited. I too use quotations for the "flower". The glass ceiling is about . 12 feet tall in . the room where the Century plant is but once it blooms, we will remove a pane of glass to allow the flower to reach its full height.

Thank you so much for posting this. You've helped me tremendously as I have never seen the bloom. Purple asparagus indeed!

Sue, yes, they only bloom once and then die.

Super cool. Have never heard of these

Some of these are quite cold hardy, the second one I posted above is being grown in a large ceramic container in NJ/Zone 7a/b. It's out all winter, but they may move it to the south side of a greenhouse and burlap the pot. Have also seen hardy ones on Long Island (Zone 7a/b). Does anyone recognize the species?

Those plants are AMAZING! Thanks for sharing your plant photos with us....

Wow! I knew about the plant but didn't know they died after blooming.

I just went out and took this pic to try and show that its flowers are actually pink! Those bunches are fist-size.

That's so cool! Love your flower pants!

Here's one in my neighbor's back yard, directly across the street from me:

I took this photo from my front yard.

Here's a giant agave in my front yard:

Furcraea Macdougalii - This will not bloom until it is about 25 years old and the plant itself will be over 20 feet high. The flower will add over 6 feet to the height when it blooms. It is from Oaxaca, Mexico, and is one of the largest (if not the largest) agaves; it is in the asparagus family. Hardy to Zone 9 - will not tolerate temperatures below 25°.

This one bloomed in my front yard Christmas 2014:

I don't know the name of this one, but we gave all the pups away as I did not have room to plant them.

Here's the flower stalk when it looked like asparagus. This one only took five years to bloom. It was quite small when I bought it at Home Depot, and I did not realize how big it was going to get.

Those are wonderful, Lars!

So interesting! I've never seen these plants and your's is gorgeous, Lynn. It does indeed look like a gigantic purple stalk of asparagus. I'm curious about the circumference- do you have any idea how large around it is?

Lots of century plants and other agave species in Los Angeles.

At one time it seemed almost mandatory that an apartment had to have an agave attenuata or two in front.

Same in San Diego, Nancy. They seem to be everywhere.

They used to be quite popular in home landscapes here when I was a kid in the 60s/70s - not so many now. Probably because all those old ones were not replaced after blooming. I do recall the flowers smell very nice.

People here would put plastic balls or cut out foam egg carton 'flowers' on the needle tips 😀

I think the flowers of agave produce bubils, each one has the potential to produce another plant.

A few years ago a forum member was kind enough to gift me a bubil of an Agave americana medio picta alba which I still have.

As long as they were allowed to mature and fall off before chopping down the flower, there should have been hundreds of bubils to replace the mother plant.

Agaves??? Why I believe I've heard of those!

I've never, ever seen one, Lynn, so thank you! They're amazing!

I just found this pic I took the day I first found it blooming. Frankly, we’d forgotten that it could! This was at one week.

Here's one from the L.A. County Arboretum, but it is not blooming:

It's somewhat similar to the one I had in my front yard that bloomed, but this one has nicer leaves.

Thank you, Lynn! I have heard of a Century plant, but never knew about the single bloom and never have seen one.

My neighbor had a century plant when I was growing up! Just like the one in your photo. It was the buzz of the neighborhood. I was sad when it died.

When I lived in Phoenix, I rode my bike too close to one and the point of the leaf sliced my calf. I still have a little scar from it.

I don't know how may different ones now. I have about 20 different ones now. Some are tiny house plants sold in lots of stores now. Like the overseas hybrids;

And the most popular house plants now;

And this fancy hybrid with square leaves;

All staying mostly small under one foot that can easily be kept as house plants.

And there are those hardy to minus 10 below to keep in northern gardens. (must be kept dry thru winter).

^ Pretty good for PA. I have maybe 500 or so here. Not including seedlings.

I have overwhelmed myself. Too hard for me to bring in my basement thru winter. Always pokes me in the arms. Some of mine are pretty big now.

A lot of recent discussion at Agaveville about agaves that might survive out of doors all year in tough places like PA. Interesting to follow.

Yes, I have to go back on. Good reading material. I have seeds of Agave utahensis (minus 10 degrees) sprouting due to not finding the plant, then I found them sort of cheap. And Agave toumeyana good to 10 degrees. Still got to keep them sheltered due to keep them dry. But an unheated greenhouse works fine.