Agave shawii at the Jurupa Mountains Discovery Center.
Plantsman Gerhard Bock of the terrific Succulents and More blog made a dash to SoCal last weekend, and we met over at the Jurupa Mountains Discovery Center to check out the plants and the views. We both spent some time admiring two variegated stands of Agave shawii.
Agave shawii is more common in the wild in Baja California than it is here in Alta Cali, where most of the plant's native habitat has been paved over. Here's a distribution map. And here is a page from Calflora comparing shawii's ideal growing conditions to the inland location where I took these photos. Shaw agaves don't like inland heat, and they burn in full sun. At Jurupa, though, conditions (sloping ground, filtered shade) seem to be ideal. The plants Gerhard and I saw last week were beautiful.
The variegation on the plant below was wonderful. Hard to tell from this photo, but most of the plants in the colony seemed to be variegated:
I have a little, variegated shawii of my own, acquired a couple years ago via trade with Riverside succulent expert Rob Roy MacGregor. Hope it looks this good someday! Be sure to check out Gerhard's blog for more terrific photos from Jurupa.
Enjoyed Gerhard's post, and this one too. What a gorgeous variegated shawii. I'll have to visit JMDC, first I've heard of it!
ReplyDeleteSeriously beautiful agaves...! Hope you will visit the JMDC and its nursery. Still swooning over Gerhard's photos!
DeleteGreat to see more photos of these beauties. I love seeing a patch of A. shawii, it's such a nice agave. The variegation of course takes things up a couple of notches!
ReplyDeleteThey're so beautiful. I'm easy to find at Jurupa - just look for the person walking round and round the shawii colony.
DeleteI need to dig out my old photos from my 1st job out of college, 1989 in San Diego. I was sent to a mesa above Del Mar to get site photos for a retail development my employer was proposing on, and there were some Agave shawii in one image.
ReplyDeleteBut with variegation...wow!
Hi, David! They must be breathtaking in habitat. The photos I've seen of ones along the coast are gorgeous!
DeleteYou got GREAT photos of these variegated Agave shawii. I couldn't believe how many variegated rosettes there were in the clumps at the JMDC! If you ever come across a pup, please grab it for me.
ReplyDeleteGerhard, thanks! Your photos of Jurupa are awesome. I ran by the other day to grab that larger three-footed pot, and may make another, longer visit this weekend. I'll ask Mike (and Rob Roy, next time I see him) about variegated shawii pups - they are such gorgeous plants.
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