The century plant knows how to make an exit. From the asparagus family, it can live for up to 40 years, growing tall, eight-metre-long spikes and bursting triumphantly into flower before it dies, spreading its seed. There’s a metaphor in it somewhere.
At Coleton Fishacre, a 1920s National Trust property in Devon, the century plants were planted 25 years ago, when their section of the garden —shared with other southern hemisphere exotics— was redeveloped. But last summer, one began to change: it had started growing a flower spike.
