Agave havardiana

Description

Agave havardiana as you may guess commonly known as Havard’s Agave is a very special agave endemic to the Davis Mountains of Texas where it grows on arid, hot during the day with cold occasionally freezing at night temperatures. To cope with these extreme conditions Agave havardiana has developed a beautiful compact growth habit forming rosettes of broad glaucous grey leaves tipped with long reddish-purple spines. Growing to nearly a metre in diameter this agave is a magnificent sight when mature, in fact in my opinion Havard’s Agave looks great at all stages of growth and is another good candidate for a growing in milder or coastal gardens. 

If you want to try growing year-round outside choose a hot sunny position with perfect drainage, add gravel and ideally mulch around the base with gravel too. I always recommend building a roof over the top of treasured agave plants in winter. Simply hammer in 4 stakes around the agave a fix a clear plastic ‘roof’ onto the top of each stake above the agave leaving the sides clear allowing wind to pass through the leaves.

Alternately we recommend growing in a pot in full sun from April to the end of October depending on the weather and moving it to a greenhouse, conservatory or even shed for the winter where it can have protection from freezing and wet. No watering will be needed from November to March.