A beautiful new agave I'd never seen

I can’t remember the last time I walked into a regular nursery and found an agave I’d never seen or even heard of. But that’s what happened the other day at Green Acres Nursery in Sacramento:

Take a look at this variegated beauty!

The tag said Agave ‘Ivory Star’ – a name I’d never come across. No other information about what it was.

When I got home, I did a Google search, expecting to find what I wanted to know. Not so. Google didn’t yield much information either. I found a few other nurseries that also sell ‘Ivory Star’, but most of them are overseas. That was a big surprise. I mean, how often does it happen that you can’t find what you’re looking for?

Based on the overall appearance, I’m fairly sure it’s an Agave desmetiana cultivar, but with noticeably wavier leaves than the species. As such, it’s not terribly cold hardy. My Agave desmetiana ‘Joe Hoak’ (similar to ‘Ivory Star’, but with straight leaves and the reverse pattern of variegation) routinely gets black spots in the winter unless I cover it on frosty nights.

Still, I was very (and I mean very) tempted to buy an ‘Ivory Star’, but $50 for a 3-gallon plant was a little too rich for me. I’m hoping that there’ll be 1-gallon plants in the low $20 range someday soon, then I’ll pull the trigger. In the meantime, I’ll drool over these photos – and continue digging for more information.

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