Agave 'Blue Ember'

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Stone Jaguar
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#76

Post by Stone Jaguar »

12345?

You know, the more I look - as a primary hybrid - the more the plants depicted resemble the potatorum parent. You know, the deep crenulations on the leaf margins, undulate terminal spine, rugose leaf surface and all.
A potatorum ex-RSN.jpg
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00000
Brooksphilly
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#77

Post by Brooksphilly »

I am still trying to get my mouth to close after hearing that you all have blue embers at Home Depot!?! Not sure what I would do if I walked into a Philly hd and saw one. But it might be quite embarrassing.

The only agaves I have seen in our stores this year are pitiful looking funkianas and filiferas. They come in looking terrible so people don't buy them and I guess they never order more. 6 inch pots here $25, so also pricey for pitiful plants. 😩😩😩
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#78

Post by Gee.S »

Stone Jaguar wrote:12345?

You, know, the more I look, as a primary hybrid the more the plants depicted resemble the potatorum parent. You know, the deep crenulations on the leaf margins, undulate terminal spine, rugose leaf surface and all.

00000
In Kelly's case, I assume he was practicing his 'rithmetic. In your case, I'll assume you've gone binary.
Agave
"American aloe plant," 1797, from Greek Agaue, proper name in mythology (mother of Pentheus), from agauos "noble," perhaps from agasthai "wonder at".

"Some talk the talk, others walk the walk, but I stalk the stalk"
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#79

Post by Stone Jaguar »

You're being diplomatic, Gee.

Brooks...no BE's at my local HDs either. Got mine out of a helpful nursery down San Diego way.
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#80

Post by Spination »

Gee.S wrote:Well, Jeremy seems a lot nicer. :))
Several years ago when I was on an Ebay buying frenzy, I bought a number of plants from Jeremy, and had some conversations via Ebay messages. My impression was he was really very nice, very helpful, and a credit to his Ebay online endeavors. Also, I recall learning via Google that he was involved with San Diego Botanic Gardens, so a person with some knowledge and experience in the plant world. I think, anyone who is anybody in the Southern California plant world is going to know and in some fashion hook up with other players in the SoCal scene... so I would fully expect he knows and has some business relations with KG. Don't know for fact, but that's my educated guess. In my book, from my own personal experience, Jeremy is one of the good guys.
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#81

Post by Gee.S »

Yes, Jeremy's reputation is immaculate, from what I know. He seems very well liked by all. He was Kelly's right hand man out in the field for quite some time, or so I've been told.
Agave
"American aloe plant," 1797, from Greek Agaue, proper name in mythology (mother of Pentheus), from agauos "noble," perhaps from agasthai "wonder at".

"Some talk the talk, others walk the walk, but I stalk the stalk"
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#82

Post by Stone Jaguar »

Great that he's admired in a community that has more than its fair share of prickly personalities (pardon the pun), but IF this photo is not in jest, than it seems to me that he's just muddying the waters as to this hybrid's true parentage.

The more I learn about commercial agave and aloe hybrids and their marketers, the more I suspect that some individuals have succumbed to the temptation of claiming, "I bred" as opposed to "I found" than is generally accepted. More charitably (barely, I admit), they practice the most piss-poor record keeping of any plant breeders I've encountered.

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Azuleja
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#83

Post by Azuleja »

And maybe sometimes they just don't want to say? RSN, as an example, seems big into "proprietary hybrids."
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#84

Post by Stone Jaguar »

Maybe those are what you get when you're not even game to make a wild guess at what Chance made and you found?
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Spination
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#85

Post by Spination »

Maybe I'm just stupid, or too trusting... but I've always viewed with suspect eye the need for proprietary/intellectual secret/property.

Think about it.

In the case of an Agave cross, we're talking about anyone being incredibly lucky to be able to cross something to something else within a ten year span (and you need 2 to bloom concurrently, unless you're freezing pollen), and then grow seedlings for several more years before one can even hope to have it available to compete with the originals. Paranoid much?

In the case of Aloe hybrids, now breeding a few myself... it's true they bloom annually, if not more often, but still we're talking about 2-3 years down the road before seeds to germination to seedlings are big enough to really know what you even got... and... also throw in the concept of a "selected" seedling that was then deemed worthy enough to name, then TC, and then grow to size to offer to the public en masse. Even if you disclose exactly how you came up with the plant, it's years before another person can try to duplicate your efforts. I would think, based on the gazillion hybrid possibilities out there and the trial-and-erroring...by the time someone has duplicated your work from years ago... you've already moved on to 20 new ones ready to introduce.

So, my question... just what are they afraid of? I'm not afraid to divulge my crosses, as I know worst case scenario, I'm years ahead of anyone who wants to give it a go. What's the big deal? I do understand the concept of proprietary information, but to me, the fears are laughable at best.

Additionally, if a person came up with something so awesome, something sure to be a great seller for years and years to come... one could go the road of 'Pickled Pink' for example, a Renee O'Connell patented creation.
https://www.google.com/patents/USPP22227" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Honestly, the need for secrecy thing escapes me entirely.
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Melt in the Sun
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#86

Post by Melt in the Sun »

I think there's a little bit of both things going on here - some "what Chance made and you found" as well as some deliberate, carefully done crosses.

I've only been to Rancho Soledad once, several years ago. When I was there I noticed that there were some flowering agaves with carefully tagged/mesh bagged pods. There were a million other pods without bags and tags. I expect that seed is collected from every plant and grown to see what comes out, which sometimes yields lovely plants like 'Blue Ember' where the parentage isn't known to anyone. Then there are others like 'Little Shark' where the cross was carefully done and parents recorded and preserved.

Sure, one of those things is better than the other from our perspective (wannabe know-it-alls?) but it doesn't mean that those other plants aren't worth propagating. Kelly said re: 'Blue Ember' that he came up with the name but not the plant. Nothing wrong with that at all.
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#87

Post by Stone Jaguar »

Melt in the Sun wrote: Sure, one of those things is better than the other from our perspective (wannabe know-it-alls?) but it doesn't mean that those other plants aren't worth propagating. Kelly said re: 'Blue Ember' that he came up with the name but not the plant. Nothing wrong with that at all.
A). "...wannabe know-it-alls". Respectfully, until you know the curricula vitae of ALL of the forum members involved in this discussion, rather speculative, don't you think? In my particular case, Dan Serrano is the only forum member who has seen my US-based greenhouse plant collection - right before it increased in size and scope by 30% in the interim. In passing but obviously, woody lilies aren't the only plant family from which one might glean experience in line breeding, hybridization, micropropagation and marketing.

B). I agree. But then - at least in FB exchange posted here - Mr. Griffin went on to imply (strongly) that he knows parentage of BE with some degree of certainty.

C). Again in my own case, I interact with respected, well-known botanists and horticultural scientists at three major US botanical gardens on a fortnightly basis, a least, across a wide variety of topics but most especially the status of undescribed plant spp of several families. Without wanting to bore you further with a peer-reviewed publications list, I certainly take umbrage at being lumped with dilettantes. Sorry...no sacred cows for me, particularly among US nurserymen.

All in good fun, eh? At the end of the day, plant talk is just nonsensical BS that helps stay early-onset senility (fingers crossed) :lol:

Peace,

Jay
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Agavemonger
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#88

Post by Agavemonger »

Brooksphilly: Your plant in the photos above is Agave X 'Blue Emperor'. Notice that the terminal spines on your plant are jet black from the get-go, which is the easiest and most straight-forward way to tell these two cultivars apart.

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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#89

Post by Brooksphilly »

Monger, I can see why you would think that based on those photos I posted initially from a cloudy day. Not that I ever want to take this ember ID train again (haha!) but it is definitely blue ember. It actually has beautiful burgundy spectrum tips and leaf edges.(not fully captured in the new pics, but closer. May be the quality of my pad camera). Different from emperor in color and in leaf shape/length. Here are better pics I took 5 minutes ago.
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#90

Post by DesertDweller »

Back on track with some gallery pics of the real deal. :U

Here are some "Blue Ember" tagged as being grown by RSN.
A. 'Blue Ember'
A. 'Blue Ember'
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A. 'Blue Ember'
A. 'Blue Ember'
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I was surprised to spot these today, and don't suspect they will last long. No, I did not buy either of them, but only because I have too many others about 2/3rd this size already. D))
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#91

Post by Azuleja »

I like it better at this size than I do when it's a mature plant.
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#92

Post by bigdaddyscondition »

And here is my 'Blue Ember', the one whose photos I posted several pages ago (and on Rancho Tissue Technologies' website, scraped from the interwebz). You're right, azuleja, the brilliant blood-red coloration is much more vivid when the plant is young.

This spiking plant measures 5 feet 0 inches wide by about 4 feet tall. Sic transit gloria.
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#93

Post by Meangreen94z »

Nice, so I guess they last about 10 years, or approximately the same as Blue Glow.
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#94

Post by bigdaddyscondition »

I bought it in October 2012 in a one-gallon pot, so yeah, about 10 years.
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#95

Post by Melt in the Sun »

It's been a while since anyone mentioned these, but as of my last visit to Greg's and a bit of Etsy shopping, I now have 'Blue Ember' and 'Burnt Burgundy' growing next to each other, at about the same size. I think I'll put them in the ground together too, maybe this fall.
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#96

Post by bigdaddyscondition »

Here is a 'Blue Ember', originally an offset from the parent plant I showcased in detail in the early pages of this thread. It's spiking, along with the Agave ocahui to its right and in the foreground in the photo. I have maybe a half dozen agaves spiking all at once, after a near-record rainy season here in the Inland Empire of southern California.

The bees are loving life in my front yard right now.

spiking agaves.jpg
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Meangreen94z
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

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Post by Meangreen94z »

bigdaddyscondition wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2023 3:57 pm Here is a 'Blue Ember', originally an offset from the parent plant I showcased in detail in the early pages of this thread. It's spiking, along with the Agave ocahui to its right and in the foreground in the photo. I have maybe a half dozen agaves spiking all at once, after a near-record rainy season here in the Inland Empire of southern California.

The bees are loving life in my front yard right now.


spiking agaves.jpg
That’s a great picture
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Re: Agave 'Blue Ember'

#98

Post by Melt in the Sun »

With that flower stalk, looks like it's not a hybrid w/ A. potatorum.
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