- The cultivation of agaves as container plants
- Suitable winter quarters for agaves
- Overwinter hardy agaves outdoors
Although the characteristic inflorescences of the agave have been growing on the coasts of the Mediterranean for centuries, the succulent, actually stemless plants originally come from North, Central and South America. While some agave species from mountainous regions are also hardy outdoors, other species must be overwintered in a frost-free place indoors.
The agave has to spend the German winter indoors
The cultivation of agaves as container plants
For most agave species, care as a container plant in a pot has become common in this country. In this way, the sun-loving plants can always be placed in the sunniest possible place between spring and autumn and easily brought into the house in winter. So that the plants can cope with the limited daylight in the house in winter, you should not fertilize them in the winter quarters and only water them very sparingly.
Suitable winter quarters for agaves
If your not frost-hardy agaves are to survive the winter as unscathed as possible, temperatures should be between 4 and 14 degrees Celsius in the winter quarters. Therefore, the following rooms are usually suitable as a winter location for the agave:
- basement rooms
- stairwells
- attics
- unheated conservatories
Above all, it is important that enough daylight can reach the leaves of the agaves even in winter.
Overwinter hardy agaves outdoors
Certain species of agave are also suited to being overwintered outdoors. The plants should be surrounded by a layer of coarse-grained gravel above the plant substrate so that there is no sign of rot due to increased moisture levels under a protective layer of coniferous twigs.
tips
Although agaves are basically adapted to locations in full sun, they are quite sensitive to extreme contrasts in light supply and temperature. You should therefore not expose specimens of this plant family that have been cultivated in a bucket and overwintered indoors to full sunlight in the spring without protection. The plants will thank you if you move them from their winter quarters to partial shade for a few days and then to their final location in the garden on a rather overcast day.