Thar She Goes!/Sunrise/New Plant

 

No, not her. 

Her:

There goes big, beautiful, silvery Agave marmorata, purchased as a small offset in April, 2011.  The flower stem will ultimately be 20-25' tall, with hundreds of flowers to nourish bees and nectar-feeding birds.  Each leaf is at least 5' long. 

Two offsets of this Agave are already growing elsewhere in the garden, so the garden will not be without it for many years to come.  I also gave away an offset.  This Agave offsets just a little, on the uphill side of the plant, making the offsets easy to remove.  A virtue that won't quite make up for the effort required to remove the remains of this plant when it is bloomed out. 

Planted a little earlier (2010), Kumara (Aloe) plicatilis has also grown considerably.  It is the single fan of leaves to the upper left of a young Aloe dichotoma that unfortunately root rotted:

And now, the same plicatilis, 2020:

Then-and-nows remind us the only constant is change.

Koi are not usually early risers but Rita was swimming around a few days ago, as the sun rose. 

I wonder if she was surprised the sunrise was even more colorful than she is. 

Just a minute later, the color was already fading. 

A nice change for the sky instead of smoked grey, or plain blue. Speaking of blue, a plant purchase, so rare this year:  Agapanthus 'Black Pantha', via mail order.  I really wanted 'Graskop', but could not find one.  A quality plant arrived in good condition:

Planted about 20 minutes after arrival. 

The flowers next June(?) will tell whether or not this will satisfy the deep indigo Agapanthus craving I've been suffering from, or if the search for 'Graskop' needs to continue.  Maybe it will continue anyway.