Owner amazed by agave plant in Telford after 50 years with family

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yl6wv150wo

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The plant, part of the family for nearly 50 years, is now towering over the house

An agave plant, tended by its owner for 50 years from pot to garden, is about to bloom for the first time, with its stalk now more than 20ft (six metres) high and towering over the home where it stands.

Telford resident Hilary Chappin bought the plant when her daughter, now 52, was a toddler and they were living in London.

She picked out a spiky species in a small pot for a conservatory area and has kept it ever since, taking it to her next three Shropshire homes and eventually placing it outside when it got too big.

In April, she saw the plant was changing and expected "a little spike", but it is now reaching for the sky, displaying "incredible branches" with yellow buds nearly ready to open.

She said: "I'm 82 now and I never thought that it would grow in my lifetime and I certainly never thought it would flower, because they usually are in glass houses."

Agaves only bloom once in their lives, she said, adding she was "thrilled".

Hilary Chappin originally bought the small spiky plant as a houseplant

The plant lived in a pot with her in Broseley and Ironbridge, but had grown so large when the family moved to Telford 23 years ago, she decided to plant it outside.

"I thought afterwards [it] was quite a silly thing to do because you never see them out of doors," she explained.

She covered it with a garden fleece in the winter and sometimes she and her husband had to rush out and protect it, if the weather forecast predicted frost.

She said it even survived the winter of 2010 which she remembered as being "very, very cold".

That year, she even stuffed straw in it, she said, adding: "It's quite a dangerous thing to do because they're very spiky."

Ms Chappin said she didn't know whether it was climate change or this year's warm weather that had prompted the buds, but she saw the first shoot in the spring.

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