Thanks to their daisy-shaped foliage heads, Aeoniums are like year-round flowers in the garden. Then when they sprout their own blooms, they’re flowers squared.
That’s what’s happening now in several of the display beds at Succulent Gardens. We have ample plantings of mature Aeoniums, as you already know if you’ve wandered around our space, and recently, each day a few more of them have popped into bloom.
It seems sudden, but really it isn’t. Aeonium blooms are slow to develop, most of them starting as an upwelling of the foliage at the head’s center, or growing point. After a while, a flower stalk emerges from the top of the swelling, and still later the numerous flowers come out.
That’s when you have a flowering flower in your garden. Not many other plants double your pleasure that way.
On many varieties, including ‘Blushing Beauty’ and ‘Cyclops,’ the tiny daisy-like flowers are arrayed in a pyramid shape. Others bloom in a way that’s been described as ‘frothy’ by our good friend Debra Lee Baldwin, whose books, articles and videos showcase succulents.
Most aeoniums are monocarpic; they die after blooming. But multiple-branched varieties don’t bloom from every branch. Those branches that didn’t bloom live on, continuing to show off the Aeonium’s first flower, those slightly rubbery leaves arranged in a floret.
