x Mangave 'Bad Hair Day' PP30279 (Bad Hair Day Mangave) - A unique and attractive succulent plant with mostly solitary rosettes that grows to 10 inches tall by 30 inches wide with very narrow quarter inch wide by 18 inches long soft and rubbery recurving green leaves that have irregular, dark-burgundy spotting on much of their surfaces when grown in bright light and with few soft flexible spines along leaf margin and tips, making the plant quite friendly. Leaves mostly lay flay but with a few decorative errant twisting leaves that gives this plant its name.
Plant in full to half day sun in a well-drained soil and give occasional to regular irrigation. This has proven to be one of the hardiest of the Mangave cultivars, reportedly growing in locations that experienced temperatures as low as 7° F without requiring any protection. This is a nice plant in the rock or succulent garden or used in a decorative container.
'Bad Hair Day' was a 2018 introduction in the Walters Gardens MAD ABOUT MANGAVEŽ Collection of plants bred by Hans Hansen. It is the result of crossing the spotted foliaged Manfreda maculosa with the narrow leafed Agave geminiflora in 2011 It was granted U.S. Plant Patent PP29,599 on March 5, 2019.
We passed on growing Mangave 'Bad Hair Day' initially after getting trial plants of it from Walters Gardens in 2017, but planted one in a decorative pot in front of our sales office where it drew so much appreciation from customers that we picked it up in 2021 and have grown it ever since. Uniquely, in this shaded location 'Bad Hair Day' lost much of its maroon spotting but its unique narrow green soft leaves were still quite appealing and even more so when moved the plant our into more sun! There is a variegated sport of this plant with creamy white lines along the leaf margins that is called Mangave 'Wigging Out' PP32,712. We have this variegated cultivar in our Mangave collection and it is also very attractive.
This information about Mangave 'Bad Hair Day' PP30279 displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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