Agaves
We have a number of agaves growing in our yard and over the years many of them have bloomed—most recently one of our Queen Victoria Agaves.
This Queen Victoria Agave started growing a flower stalk back in April and now the stalk is 13’ tall (the agave itself is just over 1’ tall)! For my Perpetual Journal I especially wanted to illustrate how the flowers bloom sequentially from the lower part of the stalk to the top of the stalk.
The flowers have attracted numerous birds and insects including hummingbirds, Verdin, Lucy’s Warblers, Cactus Wrens, native bees, honeybees, wasps, and lots of ants running up and down the stalk.
Last June we had good storm with rain coming down at a 45-degree angle and winds that blew down a 35' (!!) tall Agave weberi stalk that hadn't quite begun to flower (the winds actually uprooted the whole plant!). Here it is in its prime, before its early demise. This art is from my Tucson Yard Journal ~ June; you can see all of my Tucson Yard Journals to date on my website.
And now for something completely different!
Vintage 😉 Paula Art
As much as I love color (and I do LO❤️E color), I really enjoy the monochromatic minimalism of this “vintage” (2017) pen & ink art of mine of Huachuca Agaves. Although we have over a dozen species of agaves (agavii? 😄) in our yard, we don’t have Huachuca Agaves; I painted these specimens at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, which has a nice agave garden.
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