Aeoniums

As yesterday I potted-up a few Aeonium cuttings (actually my daughter did the potting), I thought I would share with the avid readers of ‘Musa’ some words of Aeonium wisdom.

I grow 2 varieties: 'Zwartkop' (sometimes spelled Schwarzkopf) which is the one with deep purple rosettes and a pale green variety which is, I think, ‘Magnificum’. Aeoniums are easy to grow but won’t stand any frost which means overwintering in a greenhouse or bringing indoors. Strangely, for a succulent, they like quite a lot of water during the summer.

I’ve found that one can grow ‘Zwartkop’ quite tall and I have one plant which reaches about 4ft. I always knock branches off it when moving it to and from the greenhouse in autumn and Spring but the broken pieces make good cuttings.

I grow the 4ft specimen in a pot against a sunny wall with its branches tied to trellis for support. It shares this space with a rampant, yellow leaf hop: Humulus lupulus ‘Aureus’ and a now large Salvia: Salvia microphylla 'Cerro Potosi'. I think the colours of the Aeonium, the yellow/green leaves of the hop and the Salvia’s magenta flowers probably clash. Certainly I’ve never really been able to get a good photo of the group and I’ve put this down to the strong contrast of colours. This is one of my better shots:

This is a great plant for an exotic garden and looks particularly eye-catching if grown big. Below is a photo of a rosette of Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’ after the rain:

 

In a future post I will write extolling the virtues of Humulus lupulus ‘Aureus’ and Salvia microphylla 'Cerro Potosi'

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