An update on the Agave burial mounds…

I've always been somewhat skeptical of mounds or berms in the garden. Unless done well they just look silly. Like you buried an elephant and then planted on top of it. I'm not claiming these are done well, but I don't mind them and the plants appreciate the extra drainage they provide.

However when I think of them the word "burial" is inevitably part of the name, "the agave burial mounds." Particularly appropriate after last winter, since a few agaves met their death here, as noted in the photo below. Top left (the blue agave) was an Agave americana, center below that an Aloe striatula, both gone. The Agave bracteosa in the lower center (corner) would have been okay, if the neighbors cat hadn't laid on it and it's sibling just to the right. As for the A. americana 'Variegata' that's just the beginning of a pattern for the variegated agaves...

This is how that same area looks now. The dead ones came out and new ones went in. Overall I'm quite happy with the success and not upset at the failures.

This Agave 'Royal Spine' has pride of place in the corner, it's not particularly hardy but I got it for a great price so I'm experimenting.

An aeonium which as been over wintered for years now. It starts out tiny and bulks up as summer progresses. Then I pull it in the fall and the cycle starts anew...

Ditto for the Graptoveria 'Fred Ives'...

This is the superstar of this planting Agave bracteosa it just keeps on looking good year after year...

And this little Saxifraga bloom is pretty sweet too...

This is the second burial mound, photo taken last November and subsequent deaths noted.

The look of this entire area is so different now, with the looming privet gone and a couple other big plants dead.

Yes I lost an Agave gentryi ‘Jaws’, and yes I replaced it with another.

Agave gracilipes

A pair of tiny Agave parryi 'JC Raulston' pups which made it through the winter.

Agave schidigera 'Black Widow', it had been in the house and on it's last leg. We'll see how it does here...

I decided to go for it and planted my beloved Grevillea x gaudichaudii here...

I won't hesitate to dig it up if bad winter temperatures are predicted.

And now here we are at burial mound #3, as it looks now...

And last November, deaths noted. See what I meant about a pattern? There were some supposedly hardy variegated ones in there but they're all dead dead dead.