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Aeonium 'Kiwi' (Kiwi Aeonium) - This succulent forms a mound to 2 to 3 feet tall by as wide with 3- to 5-inch-wide rosettes of fleshy, spoon-shaped leaves that has new flushes of leaves brilliantly colored with the center of the leaf pale yellow and progressively getting greener to the outside of the rosette with leaf margins red. The older leaves age to a solid gray-green color bit these are often hidden under the newer emerging more colorful leaves. The pink tinged cream to pale-yellow flowers rise well above the leaves on branched spikes in summer.
Plant in full coastal to part sun and irrigate occasionally to infrequently - A drought tolerant plant that is cold hardy to short duration temperatures to around 25degrees F. This plant is a nice garden or container plant that offsets freely and is attractive in or out of flower.
Aeonium 'Kiwi' is considered to be either a selection of Aeonium haworthii or a hybrid involving this species, though its actual origin continues to be a mystery. This cultivar has been grown in California nurseries since the 1980s as Aeonium 'Kiwi'. In Rudolph Schulz's Aeonium in Habitat and Cultivation, published in 2007, he lists this plant as a Aeonium haworthii hybrid using the name Aeonium 'Tricolor' and notes that in Australia it is called by this name but in Europe is called A. 'Kiwionium' and in the USA it is known as A. 'Kiwi'. Other sources note is has also been grown and sold as, A. percarneum 'Kiwi', A. haworthii 'Variegata', A. haworthii 'Keweonium', A. 'Kiwionium', A. 'Verde' and A. 'Dream Color' (or 'Dream Colour'). The International Crassulaceae Network lists the correct name as Aeonium haworthii 'Dream Color', noting the name first published in 2003, but this would have been many years after this plant was introduced into cultivation in the USA as Aeonium 'Kiwi'. We have grown this very nice cultivar since 1994 after getting a stock plant from a local Santa Barbara gardener in 1992.
This information about Aeonium 'Kiwi' 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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