Aeonium arboreum ‘Schwarzkopf’ (Purple Aeonium)

Exotic succulents for conservatories or very mild gardens. Plants produce a tall yellow pyramid of flowers. These perennial succulents can only be grown outside in the very mildest of gardens where there is danger of only slight frost and the soil is free draining. Otherwise they make excellent house or conservatory plants. If deprived of light (in winter, particularly), they loose some of their purple-ness and turn green in parts. The purple-ness returns with the return of the sun.

In their native country they sometimes seem to prefer shadier spots. They will tolerate a fair bit of our weaker British sunshine so if you have one growing inside ensure it still gets plenty of light, although not a very sunny windowsill. If grown in a pot make sure you don’t over water (easily done) especially in winter and early spring before growth starts, otherwise rot quickly sets in and reduces roots to a mushy mess. However, if this does occur all is not lost. Take the remaining bits of healthy rosette or rosettes, remove the lower rotten section and place them in a seed tray filled with perlite – they should root out quite quickly. Aphids and slugs seem to be the most common pests but apart from that Aeoniums are pretty easy plants to grow and keep.

Propagated by us from cuttings.

Hardiness level Red

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IF IT HAS A RED TRAFFIC LIGHT

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Hardy in Atlantic Seaboard gardens, The Channel Islands, gardens in Central London (and other large cities) and conservatories.

This is only meant as a guide; there are some plants with red labels that would only survive in extremely favoured spots such as The Isles of Scilly or coastal south-west Ireland.

We're always on hand to give advice about plants and their frost hardiness.

Please remember that these coloured labels are only a rough guide.

General Point about Plant Hardiness: The commonly held belief that it's better to 'plant small' is perfectly true with herbaceous plants, but not necessarily true with woody plants. They need some 'wood' on them to survive severe cold - so plants of marginal hardiness in very cold areas should really be planted LARGER, rather than smaller, wherever possible.