Echeveria 'Black Knight'
echeveria
- Position: Bright, indirect light
- Soil: fertile: Well-drained soil
- Rate of growth: Medium to Fast
- Flower: July to September
- Hardiness:Tender (indoors only)
- Home care: For best results, pot on using a specialist cactus compost under glass or a brightly lit, draft-free windowsill, ensuring it receives abundant sunlight. Maintain a low humidity environment. Water generously during periods of active growth, keeping the soil slightly dry at other times. All Echeveria prefer watering from the bottom, this can also help keep the rosette free from excess water, as any water allowed to sit in the rosette can cause rot. Apply a diluted, low nitrogen fertiliser every month from late spring and through the summer. During winter, reduce watering and allow the plant to become almost dry. In the summer months, consider placing the plant outdoors in a sunny spot. When the weather is hot and dry, direct and intense sunlight may affect your Echeveria 'Black Knight’s' colour so offer some afternoon shade if growing indoors on a sunny windowsill.
An especially dark form of the very variable Echeveria affinis that forms rosettes of purple-black, slightly lance-shaped leaves. The new growth in the centre of ‘Black Knight’ rosettes provides a bright green contrast to the dark outer leaves. In late summer and autumn, this perennial, tender succulent produces colourful, coral-red urn- to bell-shaped blooms atop slender, arching stalks.