The Circle of Life
One of my friends who reads this blog regularly just emailed me that while he enjoyed the story of the day and found lots of new and interesting references, he was not uplifted by the story because its theme was one of the reality of the human condition. We all have our mood swings and I guess I express my through my writing. I have been accused many times in life of being too optimistic and a bit of either a Pollyanna or cheerleader. I don’t take offense at either of those characterizations because I believe that one of the most productive places to be in life is in the land of optimism. As Steve Martin might have said in My Blue Heaven, “It’s not optimism I believe in, its over-optimism.” But none of that stops me from having moments of deeper reflection and the realization that try as a I might to spread sunshine about the future, there are forces of nature that often prevail to keep us here on earth, struggling to make ends meet.
This morning I am thinking about agaves. These common desert plants are quite plentiful around here and I probably have several hundred on my property of varying species. These plants are part of a grouping called monocots, which are the most significant form of biomass on the planet. This is a very broad group that is characterized by its seeds having one broad leaf. That seems funny because when i think of agaves, I think of multileafed plants, but then I am not a biologist and taxonomist. The grouping is so broad that it encompasses all the usual grains (rice, wheat, corn, etc.) and sugar cane, palms, bamboo, pineapples, onions and daffodils. Who knew these plants were all related? The great big blue-toned ones in my yard are Agave Americana or American Century plants and these buggers can get very very big. They grow almost anywhere, in between rocks, in sandy soil and in the middle of nowhere. They notably only bloom once in their lives and it occurred most often in about 15-20 years once they are of a fairly grand size. This house was built about twenty-three years ago and while the succulent and cactus gardens were planted about ten to fifteen years ago, I am sure there were agaves here long before there was a house. In any case, in the last year I have seen four of these monsters bloom, so I assume we are at that stage in their lifecycle for at least the largest of these plants.
I watched one of these agave trees spring up from seemingly nowhere. They grow several inches per day, which means you can almost see them grow. And before you know it hey have a 20-30 foot tree with seed pods sprouting up into the air. I also watched that seed stalk go through its cycle and die. t started to lean one day and I had to chain saw it down to keep it from falling into the house. It was not at all unlike cutting down a real woody tree. But for the months that the seed stalk is in full bloom, it drops hundreds of seed pods that look like little jalapeño peppers. Since I currently have three of these stalks in full regalia and two of them are close together behind the garage, where I keep all my gardening equipment, I have started to gather up all the seed pods with the thought that perhaps I will start to try to grow some of these things from seed.
Generally speaking, the limits of my gardening interest ends at the front end with the purchase of grown plants, or at least smaller pups. I am not so much into the marvels of propagation the way many gardeners are. I could never see myself with a greenhouse and trays of moistened seeds trying to shoot up their first sprouts. My interest begins when i can see the plant in what is more or less its fully formed state, even if it is small. When it comes to agaves, they seem to have sprouted here there and wherever around the property and everything I read or You-Tube tells me that they are pretty easy propagators. I am sure I could go and buy up a big bunch of pups at a local nursery for very little money and have Joventino plant them all over the two remaining barren areas of the back hillside. In fact, I may do just that today. But I also now have a bucket full of agave seed pods and I may just decided to become the Johnny Appleseed of agaves on my back hillside as well. It will be a sort of experiment I imagine. I will want to see if the only thing that grows back there are more mature pups, or if the seeds that naturally come from the nearby motherships are more prone to survive on this hilltop.
What I am certain of is that I want these new plants to survive on their own without a lot of supplemental water. I know it can happen because there are agaves sprouting in the most inhospitable places and they never see a lick of irrigation water. I also suspect that there is lots and lots of natural selection involved and that some of these seeds and even these pups are doomed from the start because they are not hearty enough to survive in the wild. Nature is a game of numbers and I think with agaves, based on the vast number of seed pods coming our of each plant stalk, I’m guessing that if one in a hundred make it that wi.lol be a good outcome. I am not about to mark and number these seeds. I am not conducting a laboratory experiment here and I have no interest in collecting any data that isn’t purely anecdotal. I will have Joventino plant both seeds and pups and I will spread them here and there and thereby mix things up, so I may have a story to tell in the coming year about all this or may just be wasting my and Joventino’s time. We will see.
I do not want my back hillside to be completely park-like in a manicured way. I have done that now to about two-thirds of the area and that’s enough. I do want things to grow in the natural spaces I have left, but I want them to grow the way the local environment intended. I may be disadvantaged because wildfire safety prevents me from letting the scrub grow up around the house, so I have to keep this experiment to agaves and any other cactus varieties I’m inclined to plant and leave alone to survive in the dryness of the hillside.
I do want to assure you of one thing. While I am out here on the hillside playing God with plant life, I have no intention of taking this circle of life thing too seriously. you will not see me standing on some rock holding a baby agave pup up to the heavens with inspirational Elton John music playing in the background. I am merely trying to fill gaps. These are gaps in my time and gaps in my back hillside. I have an interest in having things be pleasing to the eye, but I have little need to unravel the mysteries of nature. I will leave that to the serious gardeners awhile I putter around trying simply not to kill things unnecessarily.