Residents of Dustin Drive in Waco were surprised to see a tall, asparagus-like stalk sprout from their neighbor’s front-yard bush.

The Cox family planted a century plant, better known as an agave Americana, 12 years ago in the front lawn.

It started to bloom for the first time around Easter, Susan Cox said.

A Waco family's agave plant, also known as the century plant, bloomed for the first time this Easter after 12 years of growth.
Rod Aydelotte/Tribune-Herald

The myth of the agave is that it blooms once every 100 years. But David Reed, a professor of horticulture at Texas A&M University, said it’s just that — a myth.

The plant itself grows slowly, according to Reed. Ten to 15 years, even decades, can past before it blooms, which is how the plant got its nickname of the century plant.

The agave is native to Mexico and Central America. Experts at the Texas AgriLife Extension office said it grows well in Texas because the climates are similar.

“There’s no winter in Mexico,” Reed said, “so there’s no reason for it to hurry growing.”

Mother’s gift

Cox inherited her agave, as well as her love of gardening, from her mother, who lives in Kempner.

Her mother had an agave and gave Cox one of the “babies” that sprout around the base of the plant.

“It was about a foot across when I planted it,” Cox said.

Reed said the rosette, or the base, can grow as wide as 10 feet.

The plant is a cluster of greenish-gray, waxy leaves.

“You can actually take a butter knife and scrape the wax off the leaves,” Reed said.

When it blooms, with yellow flowers at the top, a tall asparagus-like stalk shoots up from the middle of the rosette, to the height “of a telephone pole, probably 30 or 40 feet,” Cox said.

“It’s very Dr. Seuss-like,” she said.

Cox said her mother’s agave, from which Cox’s sprouted, has never bloomed.

Experts believe the plants bloom less often in the wild than when cultivated. Environmental factors, such as rain, sunlight and temperature, play a role in when the agaves blooms.

Reed said agaves are “basically a landscape plant” and they grow where they’re planted.

Born for the desert

Rick Allen, owner of the Colcord House Bed and Breakfast in Waco and dean of students at Rapoport Academy, also is a gardener “by inclination,” he said.

Allen, who has 12 agave plants in his yard, said they require no watering.

“We spend way too much time watering stuff here in Waco,” he said. “When God created plants for the desert (like the agave), they had to be tough” and live without water for a few months.

Cox said she likes that her plant requires minimal maintenance. She and her husband, Curtis, own Curtis Cox’s Jewelers on Bellmead Drive in Waco.

She said they have customers talk to them all the time about their agave.

“Sometimes people come in who’ve seen it and they didn’t even know it was ours,” Cox said.

Death after blooms

After the agave blooms, it dies. Baby plants grow out of the root of the main agave. When it dies, the baby plants are able to grow because they’re no longer in competition with the big one.

Cox is sad that her plant will die after it is done blooming.

“It’s been out there a long time,” she said. “It’s become a part of the family.”

She plans to keep one of the 30 baby plants that sprouted and give the rest away.

Regardless of how often the century plant blooms, Reed said it’s an intriguing plant that “causes people to turn their eyes and ask questions.”

cquackenbush@wacotrib.com

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