If you love tough and forgiving agaves, it’ll be interesting to find some of the best Agave Varieties you can grow in pots outdoors and indoors.
Agave is a large genus of plants with over 250-300 varieties. Large types of agaves are difficult to be contained in containers, but there are smaller, more compact agave varieties available that you can grow in pots both outdoors and indoors.
Check out this article on 12 types of agave for your garden here
Most Beautiful Agave Varieties
1. Black Spined Agave
Botanical Name: Agave macroacantha
Height & Spread in a Pot: 10-16 inches
Sun Exposure: Full sun to dappled shade
This stunning, easy to care agave showcases a rosette of fleshy and narrow, powder blue leaves with maroon tips.
2. Century Plant
Botanical Name: Agave americana
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-16 inches
Sun Exposure: Full sun or light shade
This slow-growing agave produces a basal rosette of hard, rigid green leaves with coarse margins and sharp tips. Each leaf offers a waxy bloom and showy white marginal filament.
3. Blue Glow Agave
Botanical Name: Agave attenuata x Agave ocahui
Height & Spread in a Pot: 24-30 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial sun
‘Blue Glow’ is a slow-growing succulent with beautiful rosettes of blue-green chalky leaves with serrated edges embellished in a gold-red ribbon.
4. Cream Spike Agave
Botanical Name: Agave ‘Cream Spike’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 4-6/6-8 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial
This small variegated ornamental succulent features small round rosettes of blue-green leaves adorned with wide butter-yellow margins and dark brown spines.
5. Lucky Crown Century Plant
Botanical Name: Agave ‘Kissho Kan’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 15/18 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
It forms a striking symmetrical rosette of thick, rigid, soft silver-blue to blue-green leaves with creamy-white margins and light brown spines.
6. King of the Agave
Botanical Name: Agave nickelsiae
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-14/24-36 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
The plant exhibits a stunning compact rosette of smooth, stout, spineless, and dark olive green leaves with narrow white margins, tipped by contrasting black terminal spine.
7. Queen Victoria Agave
Botanical Name: Agave victoriae-reginae
Height & Spread in a Pot: 10-14/12-24 inches
Sun Exposure: Full sun
Incredibly beautiful, this award-winning agave offers a slow-growing, spherical rosette of smooth, spineless, thick dark green leaves with white margins and small terminal spine.
8. Thread Leaf Agave
Botanical Name: Agave filifera
Height & Spread in a Pot: 6-8/6-10 inches
Sun Exposure: Full Sun to Partial shade
It displays a compact clustering rosette of mid-green leaves with white filaments along the edges and white stripe in the center of the leaf, having sharp red terminal spines.
9. Quadricolor Agave
Botanical Name: Agave univittata ‘Quadricolor’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-24 inches
Sun Exposure: Full sun to light shade
This beautiful small, highly ornamental agave forms a rosette of serrated striped leaves with a dark green center, pale green mid-stripe, and golden yellow margins.
10. Santa Cruze Agave
Botanical Name: Agave parviflora
Height & Spread in a Pot: 10-12/8-10 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial sun
Also known as the small flower century plant, it is quite similar to Agave filifera and features hair-like curly filaments around compact dark green leaves with white markings.
11. Frostbite Century Plant
Botanical Name: Agave xylonacantha ‘Frostbite’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-14/24-28 inches
Sun Exposure: Full sun to light shade
This pretty variegated agave forms a single rosette of mid-green central stripe, wide creamy yellow edges with papery maroon-black spines.
12. Bloodspot Mangave
Botanical Name: Agave Mangave ‘Bloodspot’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-16/14-18 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial sun
This compact succulent features a rosette of wide gray-green leaves with maroon spots and fine-toothed edges.
13. Cubic Agave
Botanical Name: Agave potatorum ‘Cubic’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-14/18-20 inches
Sun Exposure: Full sun to part shade
With ridges on its back, the plant gets a three or four angled look. The compact rosettes offer green leaves with long sharp terminal spine and dark red-brown teeth on edges.
14. Blue Rose Agave
Botanical Name: Agave potatorum ‘Shoji-Raijin’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-18 inches
Sun Exposure: Full sun to Part shade
This drought-tolerant, dwarf succulent features an attractive compact rosette of fleshy, dusty-blue leaves with short spines and twisted red terminal thorn.
15. Dwarf Century Plant
Botanical Name: Agave desmettiana ‘variegata’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 2-4 inches
Sun Exposure: Full sun to partial sun
Agave pumila is a slow-growing variety with a dimorphic stage (grows many years in a juvenile form). Displays smooth, stubby leaves with dark brown terminal spines.
16. Butterfly Agave
Botanical Name: Agave potatorum ‘Cameron Blue’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 8-10/18-20 inches
Sun Exposure: Full Sun
It forms a small symmetrical rosette of blue-green leaves, ruffled sharp edges with sharp maroon tip and spines.
17. Desert Diamond Century Plant
Botanical Name: Agave ‘Desert Diamond’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 15-18/16-18 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Part Sun
‘Desert Diamond’ is a stunning succulent with an asymmetrical rosette of green leaves having light cream margins and adorned in cinnamon-brown spines.
18. Rum Runner
Botanical Name: Yungasocereus inquisivensis ‘Rum Runner’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 10 inches
Sun Exposure: Full Sun
This stunning cultivar showcases a dramatic contrast of the golden yellow center between the gray-green leaf margins.
19. Tradewinds Agave
Botanical Name: Agave potatorum ‘Tradewinds’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Part Sun
‘Tradewinds’ is a fantastic, small, freely offsetting agave with a tight rosette of blue fleshy, creamy yellow margins and maroon red teeth.
20. Dwarf Hedgehog Agave
Botanical Name: Agave stricta ‘Nana’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 10-14 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
This small succulent grows slowly and produces symmetrical rosettes of narrow, pale green, spine-tipped leaves with tiny teeth along the margins.
21. Variegated Dwarf Butterfly Agave
Botanical Name: Agave isthemensis ‘Ohi Raijin Shiro Nakafu’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 4-8 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
This small size variegated cultivar features a clump from the leaf axils. It has broad leaves are mid-green with a creamy-white center and maroon-red spines and tip.
22. Romeo Wax Agave
Botanical Name: Echeveria agavoides ‘Romeo’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 6-8/10-12 inches
Sun Exposure: Full Sun
The little Romeo agave is not an agave but an echeveria with rosettes like agave.
23. Golden Princess
Botanical Name: Agave victoriae-reginae ‘Golden Princess’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-14/12-18 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
It is a small clump-forming, a slow-growing cultivar with a broad green center and dramatic silver markings on spineless leaves.
24. Compacta
Botanical Name: Agave filifera ‘Compacta’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 8-10/8-12 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
One of the most beautiful compact agaves, its ornamental bright green leaves with striking chalky white stripes make it stand out!
25. Kichiokan
Botanical Name: Agave potatorum ‘Kichiokan’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 8-10/10-12 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
An easy plant to grow, it’s an attractive variegated cultivar with short, wide leaves with pointy margins at the end of the foliage.
26. Mountain Agave
Botanical Name: Agave montana
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-24/12-18 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
One of the large varieties, it will look quite striking in a large patio pot! The plant looks like a giant artichoke when it flowers and has gorgeous looking red edges on foliage.
27. Lion’s Mane Agave
Botanical Name: Agave attenuata ‘Variegata’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-36/12-14 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
The pale green leaves of this specimen have charming creamy yellow stripes that make it stand out from the rest. Keep it away from a chilly window.
28. Cowhorn Agave
Botanical Name: Agave bovicornuta
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-36/10-16 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
If you like your plants to be simple yet attractive, then this should be your pick. With its glossy foliage and red-spined tips, it is quite a looker!
29. Ferocious Agave
Botanical Name: Agave salmiana ferox ‘Green Goblet’
Height & Spread in a Pot: 12-36/12-20 inches
Sun Exposure: Full to Partial Sun
The plant has ferocious-looking spines at the end of wide leaves that looks magnificent on its urn-shape. You’ll need a large pot to grow it.
30. Blue Agave
Botanical Name: Agave tequilana
Height & Spread in a Pot: 24-48/24-52 inches
Sun Exposure: Full Sun
The long and slender leaves of this plant with a blue-gray sheen to it look spectacular in sun. It is a fast-growing, beautiful agave variety that is used in the production of tequila.
