Forget about Jack and the beanstalk – Southee Circle resident Joyce Hodges has a 5 metre stalk that has shot out of the lowly agave plant in her back garden over the last 10 weeks.
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Joyce, 89, has been astonished at the rapid growth of the triffid-like spear, which has gone from “nothing to 16 foot in the old measure” since the beginning of November.
“You could almost see it growing,” she said. “It would be one height when you came out in the morning and bigger in the afternoon”.
The Agave Victoria Regina plant was a lowly globe-shaped succulent – a kind of cactus – only about 40cm in diameter, until the odd-looking stalk started growing out of the top.
Joyce discovered that this happens only once in 25-30 years of the plant’s life.
“We got it 15 years ago from our grandson’s place in Tumut, when it looked like a little pineapple. Since then it’s been quietly growing until it went beserk in November.
“As it’s grown, parts of it have sprouted a mass of little cream flowers, which bees and wattle birds love – and it waves back and forth in the wind.”
