Moving a big spiky Agave

How do you move a big spiky Agave? Very carefully.

This wonderful Agava americana 'Variegata' is the big mother plant from which we (actually, my husband John) have propagated many daughter plants. Agava is obviously not hardy for us so we over-winter our plants in the basement under a big mercury vapor light. They spend the summer in our entry courtyard.

For the transition from early spring when it's still quite cold (it's around the freezing mark today), we put the plants into our hoophouse. Yesterday was their moving day. John's safe and easy moving method for this big pot is to use two straps so we can carry it by holding onto the straps, instead of the pot. This makes moving a very heavy container plant like this much easier - plus we don't get our hands anywhere near the sharp spikes.

Even though the hoophouse is just past the barn, it's easier to use the car to move this big plant over there.

Agave americana 'Variegata' safely transplorted to the hoophouse. These plants will have to sit in the shady parts of the greenhouse for a week or so, otherwise they could get sunburned. They need a bit of time to acclimatize to full sun again. Fortunately for them, it's supposed to be a grey and cloudy week.

Mother and the kids last fall before we moved them into the hoophouse for the transition to winter. It takes effort to keep non-hardy plants going!

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener