Nature is neat

For months now I have been a little sad about the agave in the corner of my yard. I planted this fantastic octopus agave in a pot a few years ago, and I just loved how it looked there. In the spring I noticed a huge spike growing up from the center of the plant (how it got SO huge before I noticed it I will never understand). It grew to about 15 feet...and then was covered with thousands of little yellow flowers. I know that agaves die once they flower. This is very sad, particularly when you only have one. So, I have just left this plant, with its dead, withered leaves, in the pot in the corner of my yard. There are three reasons that I have not removed this dead plant with its huge spike. First, it's quite heavy and hard to get out of the pot. Second, I was just not ready to give up on it, I guess. I was thinking maybe some of those little yellow flowers would become seeds and maybe I could start some agave seedlings or something... Third, I had not yet found a suitable replacement for it.

And then just the other day, I looked more closely at the huge spike to see if there were indeed any seeds there. Look what I found!!!

Each of the little tiny flowers had turned into a new plant! What a gift from Nature that was for me! Now I have hundreds of little baby agaves to grow around my yard. Not exactly sure HOW to harvest them, but since there are so many, I think I can experiment a little.

And here are some of my sunflowers that greeted me just now as I went to photograph the agave. I have been waiting for them to open, and now here they are! How can you NOT smile when you look at sunflowers?