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Aeonium 'Glenn Davidson' (Ruth's Aeonium) - A clustering green Aeonium that grows to under 1 foot tall by a couple feet wide with foliage that blushes pink in summer months when grown in bright light during its rest period and greens up in fall as it starts its active growth period. Pale pink flowers rise above foliage on a tight well branched inflorescence in spring.
Plant in full coastal sun, perhaps with some protection from full sun inland. Has proven drought tolerant in coastal gardens and since it has grown in inland locations is likely a bit more frost tolerant than many other Aeoniums.
Little is known about the parentage of this plant other than what can be speculated from by its foliage and flowers - one guess suggested by Ruth Bancroft Garden curator Brian Kemble is that Aeonium lancerottense, a species endemic to the island of Lanzarote in the Canary islands, is possibly involved.
What makes this plant so special it that it was the very first succulent plant that Ruth Bancroft planted in what eventually became one of the most extensive succulent gardens in California, the Ruth Bancroft Garden. The story of this plant is that in 1954 Ruth went to the home of a woman named Glenn Davidson in north Berkeley (Kensington) as she had heard that Ms. Davidson had a lot of Oriental items that she was selling. Though Ruth saw nothing in the home to purchase, she was interested in plants growing outside in the garden took this one plant home to plant in her own garden. Though not much is known about Glenn Davison, she was obviously involved in the succulent plant hobby as the eminent plantsman and Echeveria breeder Harry Butterfield noted in the Nov-Dec 1958 issue of the Journal of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America that his named cultivar Echeveria 'Edna Spencer' was from "a number of seedling echeveria from seed collected in the garden of the late Glenn Davidson in Berkeley". Though we had not heard this from the Ruth Bancroft Garden staff, in Rudolph Schulz's Aeonium in Habitat and Cultivation, published in 2007, it is noted that this plant was a volunteer seedling in Glenn Davidson
We were given this plant in 2014 by the Ruth Bancroft Garden to perpetuate its existence and were proud to build up enough stock to grow and sell it from 2020 until 2022 to honor both Ruth Bancroft and Glenn Davidson. Image on this page courtesy of the Ruth Bancroft Garden.
This information about Aeonium 'Glenn Davidson' displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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