What does that mean, anyway? “After my own heart?” I mean, I know it means “a kindred soul.” And I know it’s at least as old as the King James Version of the Bible. But “after my own heart?” like the heart’s a prototype or a mold or model, and the next person came “after”? Dunno.
Anyway, Cowtown Pattie just put a buncha yuccas and agaves in her garden somewhere in Texas. And one yucca that isn’t a yucca. It’s a hesperaloe. But it might as well be a yucca. Except not pointy.
Texas is, of course, the capital of agaves, as long as you ignore everything south of the Rio Grande, which is after all what the media would have us do. Agaves are to the Chihuahuan Desert what saguaros are to the Sonoran and Joshua trees are to the Mojave. Except that both saguaros and Joshuas have rather limited altitudinal ranges — there are depths below which they will not go, and heights too — and don’t tend to like valley soils whatever the altitude. Conversely agaves grow anywhere in the Chihuahuan Desert that isn’t encrusted with salt.
The Chihuahuan Desert can be found in extreme west Texas, which is redundant. It can also be found in the state of Chihuahua, which is part of Mexico, which is the actual center of agave (and yucca) diversity despite the field guides and the New York Times cutting off their coverage at the fence.
I need sleep. Does it show?
