Hello forum I haven't visited in donkey's years.

A few months ago I built a scree garden near the west wall of my 1 story house, under the wide eaves. I live about 85 air miles NE of Washington DC along the Chesapeake Bay, and autumn and winter rainfall is consistently more consistent here, if you know what I mean. You can kind of make out the pattern with this map:
//water.weather.gov/precip/index.php?yday=1389441600&yday_analysis=0&layer[]=0&layer[]=1&layer[]=4&timetype=RECENT&loctype=STATE&units=engl&timeframe=last90days&product=normal&loc=stateDE

(you will have to cut & paste because of the [] symbols)
But it also means that on a day DC might clear out by early afternoon, we will keep having drizzle until the wee hours of the morning.

Anyhow keeping dry climate plants alive has been more of a challenge than it was in my old garden west of DC, where for example, I kept Aloe eckonis outside for a couple years. The only place I'm having luck here is right near my house, where the overhang can protect stuff from rainfall.

About to plant an Agave gracilipes (in spring!) from Cistus literally inches away from the stone walls of my house. Problem is, go 8.5 feet up, and there will be 30 inches of eaves sticking out. What will happen when it tries to bloom? Will the stalk somehow sense which way the light is? Or will I need to try to steer it out of the way of the roof?