Once in a lifetime at the Phipps

Today my nephew Crispian had only one request: to do something calm.  These past few weeks he's had sports camps and baseball tournaments and he really wanted to spend time with us before we left with as little chaos as possible.  His favorite chill-out place right now is the Phipps Conservatory.  I am embarrassed to say I have never been inside the Phipps, so it was a perfect choice for all of us.

The highlight of the visit, other than the brilliant company, was the blooming of the agave plant.

Agave americana only bloom once before they die, and even though the common name for it is Century Plant, they can live for  as few as fifty to one hundred years before blooming.

Before this spring, the agave at the Phipps looked like an over sized aloe plant.  Suddenly, though, a large asparagus-looking stalk began to sprout from it, growing rapidly.  At one point it was growing a foot a day, so they had to remove a glass panel from the ceiling above the desert room to allow the agave to reach its full height and bloom.  High wind this summer did snap the stalk near the top, but the botanists fashioned a splint for it, and the plant continued to grow and bloom.  At some point it will be done, and the entire plant will die.