Echeverias

How to choose an echeveria

Choose by colour and leaf shape, since every echeveria here wants the same conditions. Black Prince and Black Knight form dark purple-black rosettes to about 20cm that colour deepest in full sun. Metallica has broad lilac-bronze leaves with a metallic sheen, and Morning Beauty and Violet Queen are the pastel ones, powdery blue-grey flushed pink and violet. For texture, Blue Curls has frilled, wavy-edged blue leaves on a rosette to 30cm, Topsy Turvy curls its grey leaves upward and inward, and Painted Lady is a small, neat rosette to about 15cm with pink-edged leaves, right for a bowl or a crevice.

Where echeverias work

Full sun to very bright light, with morning sun and a little afternoon shade being ideal in hot inland districts. They are at their best in pots and shallow bowls, where the drainage can be controlled and the rosette sits at eye level, and they also suit rockeries, gravel gardens, the gaps in a dry-stone wall and the front of a succulent bed alongside our succulents and rockery plants. In Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and the inland they grow outdoors all year; they take light frost but turn to mush in a hard one, so in Canberra and the tablelands bring pots under cover for winter. Humid summers in Brisbane and further north are their one enemy: grow them under a verandah roof where rain cannot sit in the rosette, with as much air movement as you can give them.

Planting and spacing

Use a cactus and succulent mix with extra coarse sand or perlite, in terracotta or another pot that breathes, with a drainage hole. In the ground, plant into a mound or a raised bed of gritty soil. Space rosettes 20cm to 30cm apart; they fill in with offsets. Set each rosette with its lowest leaves just clear of the mix so they do not sit on wet soil. Water once at planting, then wait until the mix is dry.

Care basics

Water the mix, never the rosette, when it has dried right through, roughly every two weeks in summer and monthly in winter. Water trapped between the leaves rots them, so tip the pot to drain it after rain. Feed once in spring with a slow-release fertiliser at half rate. Pull off dead lower leaves so mealybugs have nowhere to hide. A rosette that stretches and opens up is asking for more light. Echeverias are the easiest succulents to propagate: a single leaf laid on dry mix grows a new rosette, and offsets can be cut away and potted at any time. Our guide to growing succulents covers the group.

Common questions

Why is my echeveria stretching out?

Not enough light. Move it into full sun gradually over a week. The stretched section will not shrink back, but you can cut the top off, let it dry for a few days and replant it as a compact rosette.

How often do I water an echeveria?

Only when the mix is dry all the way through: about every two weeks in warm weather and once a month or less in winter. Wrinkled leaves mean it is thirsty.

Can echeverias live indoors?

On a windowsill that gets direct sun for most of the day, yes. In an ordinary room they stretch and fade within months.

Do echeverias survive frost?

Light frosts, yes, with some marking. Hard frosts kill them, so in cold districts grow them in pots that can be moved under cover.