Bloomday for July—it had to happen eventually

All the usual things are blooming in my garden this July. There are a few Magnolia macrophylla blooms hanging on, although by now they are rather "worn"...

All the Callistemon ‘Woodlander’s Hardy Red’ are blooming their hearts out.

I discovered the blooms of Lomandra 'Platinum Beauty'

And I am thrilled by the quantity of Feijoa sellowiana blooms.

A cutting of Cylindropuntia whipplei 'Snow Leopard' that Doug gave me when I visited his garden has thrown out a bloom...

And there are purple and white passionflowers blooming, although I only have a photo of Passiflora 'Snow Queen'.

There are Yucca filamentosa bloom spikes, a LOT of them.

And my traveling cactus buddy ("growers choice") has gone into bloom overdrive...

But really all of those blooms pale in comparison to my excitement over what I discovered on Monday evening when I went out to water. Let me switch to all caps, as is appropriate for this announcement: MY AGAVE VICTORIAE-REGINAE IS GOING TO BLOOM! Yes, my first blooming agave, ever.

I replanted a pot next to the A. victoriae-reginae on Sunday afternoon, and remember looking at the center of the agave and thinking it was a little lighter in color than the rest of the plant, and the leaves seemed a little thinner. I blamed it on our cool, cloudy and wet spring and didn't give it a second thought. That is until Monday when I realized just what was happening—as the center of the plant had pushed out a spike already 3" tall.

Tuesday morning I rearranged the pots in this corner of the patio, hoping to make measuring and photographing the bloom spike easier, and to move the agave front and center, for optimum viewing.

By Tuesday evening—just 24 hours after I first noticed the spike emerging—it was already at 9" tall. Wednesday I took a few close-ups...

And by that evening it had grown to just shy of 14". 

Thursday mid-morning it was obviously taller...

But I didn't measure it until evening, when it came in at 24 inches tall!

Three inches on Monday evening, two feet on Thursday evening. I'm not new to this agave game, I know the bloom spike grows fast, but wow—it is just incredible to see.

A little backstory; I bought it in 2014, at the Friends of Manito Park plant sale, in my hometown of Spokane, Washington. Here's a link to the post I did back then, and a photo from that post below, the spiky plant all packed for traveling...

It obviously hasn't grown much since I brought it home, but then again it was pretty much at it's mature size then. I asked an Instagram friend who works at the Gaiser Conservatory (the plant's home before I bought it) and asked if she had anyway to verify its age. She couldn't say for sure, but guessed it to be around 30. It's bittersweet, to know this agave is going to die, but it's also terribly exciting to (finally) have one of my agaves bloom. You know I'll be regularly updating you on the progress!

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