Check the link. A. sisalana is rather tender, but quite tolerant of extreme heat/sun. I doubt the plant will survive a single zone 8 winter, and at 6'- 8' across, it will quickly outgrow the ability of most to maintain it inside.

Here is a link that might be useful: Agave sisalana mediopicta

Germanstar,
*blinks* Well, I did plan on leaving it outdoors during the Spring/Summer and bringing it indoors in the winter, but 6-8 feet wide... I might just have to re-think this one. o_0

Planto

OMG! That will be huge! Ut oh.. :-/
I love Agave's but with my small yard, haven't attempted any yet.

A. sislana grows so fast, you can almost hear it squeak, which makes sense since it was presumably developed as a fiber crop plant.

@jojosplants: There are plenty of small Agaves out there (though many of the mighty mites are tender), you ought to give some a whirl. Try A. mckelveyana, a hardy AZ native that tops out at about 12". If you want more ooohs & ahhhs, try dancing with A. lophantha 'Qiuadricolor'.

JoJo,
Uh oh for sure lol.

GermanStar,
Wow, fiber crop plant eh? I've seen pictures of some of those Agaves... they are huge indeed. I have another Agave which was identified to be either Agave parviflora or Agave polianthiflora (too small right now to tell). Do I need to worry about this fella too? >.>

Planto

I believe variegata is different than mediopicta. My variegata is about 3 foot wide. I don't believe it will get any larger. It is pupping, but I wouldn't call it a fast grower. I'll post pix when I'm on laptop instead of phone.

Back again, Beth! Found older pix & took new ones. You tell me if your plant looks the same...or more like the one for which GS posted a link.

Hmmm...don't know why it does it, but all the pix posted in reverse order (almost). Just read what it says on the pic for dates, please. One pic shows freeze damage (a rare occurrence here). It might have fared better had it been in the ground instead of a pot, at the time.

Click for larger view:

{{gwi:573036}} {{gwi:573038}} {{gwi:573040}}

{{gwi:573042}} {{gwi:573044}} {{gwi:573046}}

{{gwi:573048}} {{gwi:573050}}

{{gwi:573051}} {{gwi:573055}}

I killed a regular A. sisalana that was given to me at a plant swap by growing it outside. Big difference between south of San antonio and west of Austin. Usually variegated plants are more sensitive than non variegated.

Agave forms are normally hard to cover once they reach a certain size.

GermanStar,
What girl wouldn't want "ooohs & ahhhs"! lol.. Yes, I will check them out! Thank you! A little frost tender I can handle, if the plants are small. !2" would be O.K. I have 2 small area's of the yard I would like some in ground plants.

Planto..
Can you return it to the store?

Hi there, I used to have 2 sisalanas which I grew from pups collected in Lanzarote, Canary Isles. They each grew to around 2.5 feet high and were doing just fine till we had a terribly cold/long/snowy winter a few years back and temps plummeted to -18C. The plants were all potted and tucked away in the g/h but they didn't survive, unfortunately. They had vicious spines like daggers on the ends of the leaves that always managed to stab me somewhere! Have never seen the variegated type...they do look good.

Gill UK

@rosemariero: That appears to be A. sisalana mediopicta aurea, which is represented in the thread I linked. It may be smaller that "regular" mediopicta, I'm not sure. I do have a youngster, and it seems robust, but it does have an odd feel about it -- i.e. it seems different above and beyond the variegation.

Rose Marie,
The variegation on mine seemed different than both the one GS posted and yours. *shrugs*

JoJo,
I returned it this morning. I made a noob mistake and didn't bother to research how big it was going to get. Oh well.

Sorry to have posted about a plant that I ended up returning.

Planto

Planto, don't be so hard on yourself! ;-). Gosh, we've all got plants at one time or another without searching first. Glad you were able to return it. Maybe you could look into the ones GermanStar suggested for me.