New Mexico Century Plant

This showy, low-growing agave grows two feet tall and two to three feet wide, forming a tight rosette. Its powdery blue leaves are broad with black or burgundy colored, heavily armed spines along the side of its foliage that grow from a central base. The handsome plant will produce many offsets over its lifetime. A cultivated variety ‘Sunspot’ has greenish-yellow variegation on its foliate with distinctive black spines along the leaf margins. In late spring through summer, at the end of its lifetime, it will produce an eleven-foot, pinkish-red flower spike. The flowers open to form a golden yellow bloom that attracts hummingbirds. Use it as a focal plant in large, decorative containers where it can be viewed up close. It can also be used in rock garden, as a mass planting or with other showy cacti and succulents. The New Mexico century plant is native to southeastern New Mexico and western Texas.