Repotting the Agave Americana

Finally got around to repotting my Agave plant 🪴. One year later and a little research 🧐 of checking online and asking other owners.

In my mind it was a complicated matter as I read that a special type of soil is needed; sandy with gravels, though there is probably a proper term for it.

I thought this type of soil would be hard to find but after talking to staff at a cafe I went to recently, he informed my that the agave they have there use a sandy-rocky soil found in most home and garden centers a glimpse of the product can seen below. The main kanji read, “ Potting for houseplants” so it definitely wasn’t any special type of soil. You see how the mind makes a simple matter difficult? I literally put off repotting the agave because I wasn't sure. And that is why it is important to get out there and seek info.

The Repotting

Agave Americana can get really huge but left in a small environment, like any living thing, it will only grow to fit the size of it's container. So what do we do if we want it to grow more? Get a bugger container. The one below was pretty decent in terms of price, size and color.

After putting on some gloves to protect my hands from the prickles or MAKA as we would say in Jamaica, I turned the old pot with the agave upside down, squeezed the sides a bit and tilted it to the side and slowly shook it out while being mindful of the MAKA.

The up rooted agave looked like Goku or is that Vegitta from DragonBall Z. I'm not much of a fan but have many friends and family who are. Look how much the agave resembles his hair and the dirt and root his face 😄.

I made a slight miss-step of putting too much soil of the new dirt in the pot and then placing the agave in and filling it up only to realize that the pot would be too full and the agave root system slightly exposed.

I grabbed the soil fist by fist and put it back in the bag as I didn't want to make a mess ( too late) and started over putting only a thin layer of the new soil in the pot.

The end result

The repotting turned out great though by looking at the pics the plant doesn't look centered but it actually is. Now this plant has room to spread it's roots and get even bigger. The lower leathery leaves were pushing against the old pot, stuck between the upper leaves and the soil. They didn't have room to breath and grow. Now they have enough space to stretch out toward the sun.

My plan is to gather as many agave plants as I can as they are esthetically pleasing, easy to take care of as they are from the cactus family and also for some reason, in high demand in Japan. I believe this demand came from overseas design magazines and films.

How did I end up with this plant? After helping some Japanese friends to import a few from the states, I began to get curious about the Agave plant and asked if I could keep one. Through having the plant around I was able to observe it's growth patterns and reactions to seasons. I came to love the agave plant and started researching more about it. Now here I am doing a gardening post.

• I hope you found this post even a tad bit interesting, if not meh 😆. By the way? Have Agave plants? Please post some pics in the comments and tell me about it.*