DES MOINES, Iowa — The Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden has a once-in-a-decade opportunity that has been drawing people into the garden for the past month.

The Blue Agave Glow is a plant native to the Southwest and Mexico, but one is located here in Des Moines. It’s not a regular plant, though. The excitement began a little over a month ago, when a spike emerging from the plant appeared.

The plant sits dormant for 10-15 years; in this case, the plant has been at the botanical garden for 11 years. Then, it produces a long spike coming out of the middle of the plant. The spike started a little over a month ago and has now grown to 11 feet.

What makes this plant unique is that it is monocarpic, meaning that it blooms once, then dies. That’s right, the plant works up the energy for 10-15 years to produce one bloom, shows it off, then dies.

“They only bloom like, say, once every ten to 12 to 15 years,” said Aaron Harpold, Director of Horticulture at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden. “Some of the folks call them the century plant. They don’t bloom every hundred years. But again, it’s because the blooms are so infrequent in between cycles that they bloom. They put all their energy into that bloom. And then actually they’re monocarpic, which means they bloom and then they die.”

The plant is often referred to as the death bloom. The flowering buds are about halfway up the spike and continue to the top. Harpold said he expects the buds to start blooming in the next one to two weeks. After that, the spike starts to turn brown, then officially dies. That whole process will take four to six weeks.

Harpold did say that the skeleton of the Agave Blue Glow will still be standing for roughly three months before it eventually falls over. Then, the remains will be sent to be composted, and the compost will be sent back to the garden to be used as fertilizer.

For those interested in viewing the death bloom, a link to purchase tickets and view the botanical garden’s hours of operation can be found here.