Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Finally, an Agave I don’t want!

I stopped at Pier 1 the other night to pick up a Christmas gift for a friend. Naturally I had to take a look around, you know, since I was there. It was with horror that I discovered this. You know a plant has reached a certain “hip quotient” when it’s being reproduced for sale by a mass retailer. The more I thought about it I decided maybe it was a good thing. More people appreciating agaves can’t be bad, even if their first is a faux. Although at $35, pricey! Doesn’t “agave en pot” sound like a French recipe? The patterns made on real agave leaves by the spikes on the surrounding leaves are one of my favorite features, but I’ve never seen this pattern on an agave before. Doesn’t it look like it might be infested with agave snout weevil? Or maybe some sap sucking vampire creature got to it?

I tried to take one off the shelf for a closer look, but the person who stocked the shelves didn’t take the time to adjust their height. All Pier 1 shelves are adjustable, I know this…I worked there in the mid 80’s. The fake agaves were crammed into a space to short for them.Every one of their center cone spikes were broken and peeled open, exposing the hard plastic interior. The picture is pathetically blurry but hopefully you can see the damage. The light green plastic bit is supposed to be covered by the darker brown/green “skin”. But no more. So sad.
I hate seeing a damaged and unloved agave even if it is a fake.

7 comments:

  1. That is sweet of you to care even about the faux agaves. Avage en pot, maybe a delicacy on some french-speaking warm island somewhere? Hey, agave nectar is all the rage now too, right? Maybe the world northern hemisphere is just catching up to you now, even in weird and slightly regrettable ways.

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  2. Hi Loree~~ I'll just betcha if you moved the gravel top dressing a bit, you'd see a Made in China sticker. I'm thinking this type of bric-a-brac is for clients of those interior designers married to a "theme." Who want everything all matchy-matchy and finished right now. The designer is based in New York and on chez Trump speed dial. Clients who don't have the time nor the inclination to care for the living. They're much too busy jetting off to God knows where. And their perfect agave will be situated in their perfectly coiffed estate awaiting their return. ... I'm wondering if those tiny agave in the clear cubes are also faux. If so my only question is, "What's the point?" LOL

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  3. Karen, they just looked so sad! I can totally taste the delicacy! The agave is pretty much going to save the world. Natural sweetener, fiber, and tequila! Three very valuable things...

    Hi Grace, oh I forgot that part. The gravel was all glued together, sort of a gravel astroturf. No moving it. You could tip it upside down and it stayed in place. I think your right about them not having the "time nor the inclination to care for the living"…I have a good friend who is a regional manager with Pier 1, I've got to try and get the sales figures from her. I wonder what part of the U.S. will have the highest faux agave sales? And yep...the other little succulents were also fake.

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  4. I also worked in a Pier 1 for a while. I like a lot of their stuff, but there's always a lot of broken or damaged items in their store. Maybe you can wait until they're marked down and do a bit of gluing?

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  5. How It Grows, I agree...things take a beating there. I remember unloading the truck, our stockroom was in the basement and we literally threw the boxes down the stairs from the ground floor alley. Not so good for the breakables.

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  6. Now agaves are the hot plant, but only the truly dedicated will bother to tend them outside of their zones. It's always a bummer when something good becomes popular enough that you don't only see it pampered by enthusiasts, but more commonly neglected and unloved. Hopefully the broken plastic agave trend won't catch on.

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  7. nah, idk why you would want these things, personally i would rather have a colorful flower arrangement

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