Plant in full coastal sun to shade in a well-drained soil in moist or fairly dry soils but looks its best with an occasional watering. Will tolerate light frost but will usually be damaged in temperatures much below 28° F. Tolerant of near seaside conditions.

This is another of the blue selections that like Agave attenuata 'Nova' were from the seed collected along a high rocky cliff at 7,200 feet in the Sierra de Manantlan on the south facing slope of a ridge above Durazono in the state of Jaliscoby by Myron Kimnack and Fred Boutin in 1970. Seedlings from these plants were originally distributed by the Huntington Botanic through their International Succulent Introductions program as ISI#1442 Agave attenuata S.-D. var nov. in 1984 and again in 1990 as ISI# 9038 Agave attenuata 'Nova'. It is much bluer and has wider leaves than Agave attenuata and the flower stalk is erect where Agave attenuata droops over. Culture and growth patterns are otherwise similar to the species.

In 2003 the Huntington Botanic Gardens announced that Agave attenuata var. nov (ISI#1442) and Agave attenuata 'Nova' (ISI# 9038) are the same taxon, though in fact the first plants offered in the nursery trade were seedlings, so really represented a grex group with many genetically unique individual plants that would allow for the potential for many separate cultivars that could be selected from them. San Marcos Growers grew some of these other named plants, including the selections 'Huntington Blue' and 'Arboleda Blue'. but continued to list the first of the seedlings selections that we made as Agave attenuata 'Nova'.

The name 'Nova' had been published as early as 1984 but Colin Walker, writing in the June 2001 Journal of the British Cactus and Succulent Society proposed the plant be renamed Agave attenuata 'Boutin Blue' citing that the cultivar name 'Nova' should not allowed by the rules of nomenclature for cultivated plants because it "may be considered to be Latin, and thus liable to cause confusion." The word "nova", meaning "a star that ejects some of its material in the form of a cloud and become more luminous in the process", is also used as a noun in the English language, so it actually could be legitimately used for a cultivar name. San Marcos Growers has sold a seedling selection it made from the Huntington seed grown plants since 1987 under the name Agave attenuata 'Nova' and continue to offer this selection under its original name.

In 2012 the Huntington Botanic Garden made their own selection of one of the original Myron Kimnach and Fred Boutin collected plants and had it reproduced by micropropagation (tissue culture) by Rancho Tissue Technologies and this plant has now been officially named Agave attenuata 'Boutin Blue' and for several years (2015 until 2018) we offered both our original selection 'Nova' and the newly crowned 'Boutin Blue' but Rancho Tissue Technologies stopped selling 'Boutin Blue' to nurseries in California so we now only sell our originally selected plant, Agave attenuata 'Nova'. These sister seedling originated cultivars are so similar, with seemingly only minor genetic differences, that we describe them here the same. 

The information about Agave attenuata 'Boutin Blue' displayed on this web page is based on our research conducted in the nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also include 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 we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant.