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Crassula multicava 'Ngabara' (Red Fairy Crassula) - A fast growing evergreen succulent groundcover that rarely exceeds a foot tall in the landscape and stays even lower when grown in dry shade. It forms wide mats of solid cover with 1 1/2-inch-long glossy rounded leaves in opposite pairs that green on the upper surface and red below. In winter appear the petite flowers which are pink in bud and then open to charming little white stars that are very showy as a spray above the foliage on reddish stems. After flowering small plantlets often form in the flower axils.
As with the typical all green form, which we also grow, this is a shade-loving plant that can also grow in full coastal sun. It is tolerant of extended dry periods when growing in shade and in fact needs no supplemental irrigation to survive in these conditions in Santa Barbara but will look better with an occasional watering.
Crassula multicava occurs naturally along the forest margin, riparian areas and within coastal vegetation from Mpumulanga (Eastern Transvaal), Natal to the Eastern and southern Cape provinces. The green form has long been in cultivation in California and we have a good deal of information about it on our Crassula multicava listing, but this red backed form is quite new to cultivation in the US. It is sometimes found in nurseries labeled Crassula multicava 'Red' but South African horticulturalist Ernst van Jaarsveld tells us this plant came into cultivation in South Africa in the 1990s when a student of Professor Braam van Wyk at the University of Pretoria collected it from Ngabara in the Transkei coastal region of southeastern South Africa.
The information about Crassula multicava 'Ngabara' that is displayed on this web page is based on research conducted in our nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We will also include observations made about this plant as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens that we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We also incorporate comments that we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they share cultural information that aids others growing this plant.
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