Fat family. Homeland Mediterranean, Arabian Peninsula, North Africa (Ethiopia, etc.).
This genus of succulent plants in nature has about 40 species. They are all plants with rosettes of rounded leaves. Some of them are small, squat, others reach about a meter in height on thick, lignified stems. The color of eoniums is the most diverse, from yellow to dark purple - almost black. Many species are so similar that only a specialist can distinguish them. Most cultivated species have not only several variations or forms, but also varieties.
Most of the eoniums in nature have a rosette shape at a young age, but gradually the stem lengthens, branches and the plant turns into a spreading bush, in which the leaves are preserved only on the tops of the shoots, most of the stems are bare with lignified bark. Some species, such as Eonium Lindley, can be said from infancy to look like a small tree.
Aeonium arboreum is the most common species. This is a slightly branching shrub up to 90 cm tall (in natural conditions). The stems are erect, brownish. Fleshy leaves up to 6-7 cm long are collected in dense rosettes, which reach 20 cm in diameter. The leaves are bare, bordered at the edges by delicate hairs. The leaves can be of various shapes, for example, scapular or rounded, blunt, or sharply pointed at the end. The leaves are green and the garden forms are green with a purple margin or dark purple. It blooms with bright yellow flowers collected in umbrella inflorescences. A variety of tree-like eonium - Schwarzkopf - with maroon, almost black leaves is widespread.
Aeonium tabuliforme - has a short squat trunk and a dense rosette of leaves, as if spread out on the surface of the earth. This type of eonium can reach 40-50 cm in diameter of the outlet, with a height of about 10 cm.
Eonium - care and cultivation
Temperature: Moderate in summer, in extreme heat the stems are more quickly exposed from below. In autumn-winter, the rest period is at a temperature of 10-12 ° C, at least 8 ° C, with dry content. In summer, it is better to keep in the open air on the balcony or in the garden. When wintering in warm conditions, it loses leaves and decorative attractiveness.
Lighting: Bright, intense lighting, with direct sunlight, on the south and west windows may need shading from 12 to 15 hours (in the form of a mosquito net). Eoniums love a lot of light and sun in both winter and summer.
Watering: Moderate in spring and summer, always after drying the earthen coma completely. Since autumn it is reduced, and rarely watered in winter, after the earth dries from above, wait with watering for 6-7 days. This is approximately, you need to navigate with the frequency of irrigation by the speed of drying the soil, and it should dry quickly. For eoniums and other thick watering should be such that the soil dries completely no longer than 2 days. If it dries longer, then you either water too much or the soil is too dense.
Fertilizer: From May to August, they are fed once a month with special fertilizer for cacti and other succulents, with a high potassium content.
Air humidity: Eoniums are resistant to dry air, do not need spraying.
Transplantation: Soil - the 1 part of the sod earth, the 1 part of the leaf, the 1 part of the sand, the 1/2 part of the small expanded clay (or coconut substrate). For adult and old plants, sod soil is 2 parts. Young plants are transplanted annually, old in a year. After transplantation, watering is very careful - little by little, so as not to cause rot of the roots. It is useful to add pieces of birch coal to the soil. Good drainage is mandatory.
Reproduction
Eonium is propagated by stem cuttings with a rosette of leaves. Cuttings or one sheet are simply stuck into dry soil, if necessary, fastened with a paper clip or pebbles. Do not water and shade. If the weather is very hot, you can spray once in the morning or evening. The first time to water, literally from a teaspoon in 7-10 days. To find out that the stalk is rooted in the appearance of new leaves or the resumption of the growth of the apical kidney, then the shade can be removed and put the young plant in a brighter place.
Growing problems
- The leaves are small, and the lower part of the stems is very exposed - with insufficient watering, or when the pot is cramped and a transplant is needed. If the stem is also extended, then this is from a lack of light.
- The rosette is loose, the leaves are long, they do not sit tightly, in general, the plant is inclined to one side (to the light source) - a lack of sunlight.
- If a plant with green leaves began to blush on a sunny window, it needs to be shaded so as not to get burns.
- Leaves turn black and die, stems turn black and soften - with excessive watering, especially in a cool room.
- In winter, the leaves dry out and fall off - if it is too dry and hot.
- Leaves in varietal eoniums become dark purple greenish - if there is not enough light.