Plant in full sun to light shade in a moderately well drained soil and irrigate occasionally. It is cold hardy at least down to the high 20s F. This plant is an attractive plant in the garden and is particularly useful in places like Santa Barbara where other wide leafed Dioon species do not thrive. It also makes a nice large container specimen.

Dioon rzedowskii was first described as a new species in 1980. It comes from the valley of the Rio Santa Domingo in Oaxaca, Mexico, where it grows in crevices of limestone cliffs in open forest from 2100 to 2800 feet in elevation. It looks very similar to the more common Dioon spinulosum, though with leaflets that are entire, without teeth and are lighter colored. The leaves also have 4- to 6-inch-long bare petioles, which distinguishes it from Dioon meijae. Dioon rzedowskii is both hardier and tolerates full sun better than these other wide leafed Dioons and it also remains the rarest of these three wide-leaf Dioons. The genus name means "two-egged", referring to the two ovules and the specific epithet honors Jerzy Rzedowski (1926-2023) a Polish born botanist who moved to Mexico as a young man and became a prominent taxonomist and authority of Mexican plants. Our thanks to Eric Anderson of Seedco for providing us with this great plant. 

Information displayed on this page about Dioon rzedowskii is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.