The flowers of agave americana, have been popping up from St Peter Port to Torteval, with particularly noticeable examples outside the Northern Trust building on the seafront near the turning into Admiral Park.
But rather than a display of classic multicoloured blooms, these plant produces a massive 25 foot-high tree-like stalk that shoots up in just a few months.
The spiky plants, native to Mexico and the southern United States, normally grow about five foot high and are commonly known as century plants, as they bloom only once at the end of a long lifecycle of up to 30 years.
Colin Williams-Yeager, who lives near Port Grat, planted three of the plants nine years ago and found one started to bloom this summer.
‘It must be closer to 30 feet now and is taller than the house,’ he said.
‘The whole thing just shot up in a few months, I had no idea that was what they did.’
Mr Williams-Yeager said the agave americana in his garden that was flowering was much older than the other ones.
‘It was fully grown when we bought it a few years ago as it came from someone else’s garden who thought it was too big,’ he said. ‘We have two others in the garden that haven’t flowered, they were all planted at the same time but these ones are smaller. Instead of standing up tall the leaves on the flowering one started to droop and then the flower just started coming up through the middle.’
The plants are known as ‘monocarpic’, living for a number of years without flowering and then dying after dramatically flowering and setting seed.
However this will not be the end of the plant in Mr Williams-Yeager's garden as they normally produce a number of new plants from suckers during their lifespan and these plants continue the lifecycle. The last time there was a notable blooming of these plants in Guernsey was 2018, a long hot dry summer like this year.
La Societe Guernesiaise botany section joint-secretary, Helen Litchfield, said this may be the reason so many are flowering.
‘I am guessing they are flowering this year as we have had quite a hot summer and they are a plant native to warmer climes,’ she said. ‘However If you look at the base of the plant you will see many offshoots.’
Despite enjoying the blooms Mr Williams-Yeager said he was slightly concerned about what would happen next.
‘The flower is really close to the main road and close to the telephone wires so once it starts to wither we don’t want it falling on to anything, so we might have to have it cut down,’ he said.
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