Aeonium tabuliforme

Aeonium tabuliforme is a wonderful and unique Aeonium from Tenerife that forms a flattened geometric rossette of overlapping soft-green leaves which have delicate white cilia along their margins. The combination of their large flattened shape and the curious spiral patterns created by their leaves makes Aeonium tabuliforme one of the most instantly-recognised and desirable of all the tender succulents.

In the wild they are found only in a few habitats where they grow on cliff-faces and rocky surfaces clinging vertically to the lava and pressing their shape against the rock like a curious vegetal limpet. In cultivation they require perfect drainage with a gritty sandy substrate and will not tolerate water standing around their roots or in their growing crowns. They are tender and the best way to cultivate them in the UK is in large shallow terracotta pots where they can either be showed off as specimens or plunged alpine-stye into the gravel surface of a larger xeriphytic display and then bought inside again for winter. They are also well suited to a summer planting in the cracks of a courtyard stonewall where their vertical growth mimics their natural habit in the wild. When grown outdoors like this, great care must be taken to protect them from slugs and snails which make very short work of them. They are ideal houseplants and can be sat on the windowsill over winter.

Aeonium tabuliforme is reasonably cold-tolerant but must be treated as tender in the UK. Bring indoors to a windowsill for the winter and keep dry until Spring.

A monocarpic species, its yellow flowers appear in a raceme about 40-60cm high after three or four years.