Irony & the Snout Weevil Strike

Agaves in our Mallorcan garden
Agaves were the start of our garden

In my last post, I wrote about the challenges of keeping our Mallorca garden’s agaves under control. What I didn’t mention was that The Boss had suggested removing a few of these plants to make gardening less risky in the future.

I’m all for simplifying life where possible, but we’ve had these agaves in our garden since they were very small. They were the foundation plants in what would become the garden, having cleared the part of our field closest to the house almost seventeen years ago.

Most of these agaves are now taller than I am and they provide a striking (sometimes literally) contrast to the other plants we’ve added over the years. I couldn’t bear the thought of removing any of these architecturally interesting plants and, after some discussion, we agreed to review the situation next year.

Nature Intervenes

Oh, the irony. We recently went into the garden and found that one of the agaves had fallen down – separated somehow from its core, which was still in the soil. We were mystified but told ourselves it was probably due to the plant’s considerable age – or the shock of The Boss’s recent pruning of it.

He duly removed the toppled plant, its core, and roots. Now we had only twenty-four agaves left. Still enough to start a tequila farm, although neither of us is partial to the famous Mexican tipple, made from the blue agave.

A message came from Vicky, one of our part-time neighbours, who’s created an attractive garden at her property here. Had any of our agaves been affected by the snout-nosed (aka snout-nose or snout) weevil? We’d never heard of such a creature and I went straight to Google in search of more information. It seemed likely that one of these voracious little beetles was at the heart – literally – of the problem. They may be small, but they’re a huge pest.

Plenty of choice for the snout weevil
At risk of attack from the snout weevil

The Evil Weevil

The agave snout-nosed weevil is about half-an-inch long, black, and has a downward curving proboscis that it uses to deadly effect. This proboscis pierces the tough core of the agave, where the weevil lays its eggs. When the grubs hatch, their first meal awaits them: the agave heart. The plant keels over. Once the grubs have eaten their fill, they bury themselves into the soil to pupate. It’s unbelievable that such a tiny insect can lay waste to a plant that’s taller and wider than I am (not that I am especially wide, I should add).

A Solution as the Solution?

I found a website that could be useful when it comes to battling the snout-nosed weevil: American gardener Debra Lee Baldwin’s article on Agave Snout Weevil Prevention and Treatment seems to offer some hope, if action is taken. However, a few friends have informed me that we should expect to lose more agaves. And possibly other succulents.

It seems The Boss’s agave-trimming in the future may be a lot easier, after all.

Agaves on the Attack in Mallorca

The biggest challenge in our Mediterranean garden in rural Mallorca is keeping the agaves under control. This entails The Boss taking his special saw to the lowest ‘blades’ – they’re more like weapons than something as innocent-sounding as leaves.

This summer we did more gardening than is usual for the time of year, by getting up earlier in the morning. I’m Head of Weeding. The Boss is Head of Sawing & Agave Management. He doesn’t allow me access to his saw (boys and their toys), or the agaves. Thank goodness.

Agaves in a rural Mallorca garden
The Boss fights his way in

As well as a sharp point at the tip, each blade has spikes down each side. As careful as The Boss is when he squeezes himself among the agaves to trim them back, he still takes on the additional role of a human pincushion. Head of Weeding adds Emergency Nurse to her duties, wielding Betadine, cotton wool, and plasters. If you don’t yet have shares in a company making first-aid necessities, now could be the time to invest!

Off But Not Gone

Disposing of the sawn-off ‘blades’ is no easy task. Our local Parc Verde (recycling centre) won’t take them as garden waste, and these things have to dry out fully before we can burn them on the bonfire. We’re fortunate: we have a large field and the bottom of that field isn’t visible from our house. Just as well really, as several dozen agave ‘blades’ are spread out across the land to dry in the sun. One day they’ll have dried out enough to burn.

Agave blades drying in the sun
‘Sunbathing’ agave blades

We were gifted our agaves by a couple of kind neighbours. The plants were very small at the time, and we had no idea how close together and large (and dangerous) they would become. My advice if you acquire some small agaves to plant in your garden would be to space them out well, buy yourself a good saw and some sturdy gauntlets.

A pair of the latter is winging its way to our apartado (post office box) as I write. We should save a lot of money on plasters and iodine next year.

@Jan Edwards 2021

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Looks like the beanstalk – but where’s Jack?

In the early days of setting up a garden in the field of our finca home in rural Mallorca, we had no idea quite how large everything would grow. It seems that the lack of soil depth on our rocky land has been no deterrent to growth: aloes, agaves, ‘swords’ (I have no idea of their official name), and yuccas, have all grown to sizes beyond our expectations.

I used to wonder when our garden would be considered ‘mature’. Well, I think it’s now: one of our ‘sword’ plants has sprouted something akin to the beanstalk of the famous fairytale, and resembling a giant stalk of asparagus. If only. Think of the culinary treats . . .

Sky-bound

Sky-bound

We know that the stalk will eventually throw out a flower and, once that has died, it’s goodbye plant. Although it’s quite exciting to see this thing grow (and it’s making fairly rapid progress out there), this mighty plant, having flowered, will wither and keel over. We’ve checked its future trajectory and our roof seems to be in no danger, but The Boss will have quite a job to dig the dead plant – and what are probably quite impressive roots – out of the ground. A decade ago it was a small and rather sickly thing when a kind neighbor gave it to us to help fill some of the yawning space that was crying out to be a Mediterranean garden.

No wonder it's called the sword plant . . .

No wonder it’s called the sword plant . . .

Although the evil spikes on the end of each sword-like leaf have punctured various bits of our bodies during gardening sessions (ouch!), we’ll still be sorry to lose such an impressive architectural plant.

 

 

 

Mallorca’s most impressive plant?

Our Mediterranean-style garden on Mallorca began simply enough, with just a few baby plants of the Agave americana variety – given to us by a kind neighbour. We duly planted them, fairly close together, not appreciating quite how large they would become in due course. Later, we transplanted the ‘babies’ the original plants produced, increasing our garden stock.

They’re majestic-looking architectural plants, but can be painful if you get too close: the needle-like spike on the end of each ‘leaf’ is devilishly sharp and can cause bruising if the skin is penetrated deeply enough. Both The Boss and I have experienced weeder’s bottom – in other words, been ‘got’ by one of these leaves, while clearing the earth that surrounds the plants of unwanted greenery.

One day our agaves will probably flower – it can take a dozen years or more before they do so – and, after the magnificent effort of producing their only bloom in life, they die. We’re hoping ours don’t all keel over at once – the garden would look devastated.

Agave . . . or asparagus?

Meanwhile, our English part-time neighbours and friends are facing the demise of a massive specimen of Agave americana. They think it’s probably been on their property for around 20 years. Once the central spike that heralded the start of the flower became visible, they started to monitor progress, keeping measurements and marvelling at the rapid pace of growth. There’s something almost alien about their appearance – the flower stalk of the Agave americana, not our neighbours. It soon resembled the world’s largest piece of asparagus. We were tempted to send a photo to Sainsbury’s vegetable buyer, but didn’t think the gesture would be appreciated . . .

Our friends have returned to the UK for a while, so we are monitoring progress, which seems now to have slowed somewhat. We don’t want them to miss that moment when the flower is in its full glory.  As you can see, there’s still have a little way to go . . .

It's the start of an agave flower, not a tree. Photo by The Boss.

It’s the start of an agave flower, not a tree. Photo by The Boss.

 

You Know it’s Spring on Mallorca When . . .

Getting figgy with it

Getting figgy with it

. . . the first of the fig leaves emerge on the trees. Don’t they look like little green butterflies resting for a while?

. . . your shoulders and back ache from all the weeding you thought wouldn’t be necessary after having laid a special membrane to stop weeds growing.

. . . you have to be careful not to tread on a tortoise when walking in the undergrowth.

. . . your arms look and feel like pincushions after trimming all the agaves and sword-like plants.

. . . the birds start checking out nesting sites in the old almond tree in the field (the one the cats like to climb).

. . . the warm sunshine that bathed the island in the final weeks of winter is replaced by grey skies, cool temperatures and drizzle!

Jan Edwards Copyright 2014