Echeveria 'Nina'

The Echeveria ‘Nina’ is a succulent plant in the form of a compact, decorative rosette, reminiscent of an artichoke, that is easy to grow in a pot. It can be admired indoors all year round or allowed to enjoy the fresh air during the warmer months. It displays a grey-green colour that flushes with more intense reddish tones and a pink edge under very bright light. Depending on conditions, this variety may flower.

Belonging to the Crassulaceae family, Echeveria is a genus mostly from Mexico, found mainly in dry, rocky environments, sometimes on stone walls or slopes.
The Echeveria ‘Nina’ is a horticultural cultivar, frequently sold under the name Echeveria ‘Paul Bunyan’. It is a hybrid obtained in California by Dick Wright (1961), resulting from the cross-breeding between Echeveria gibbiflora ‘Carunculata’ and E. 'Edna Spencer’. The plant forms a dense, regular rosette, 10 to 15 cm in diameter and about 10 cm in height. It sometimes produces a few offsets from its base. The leaves, thick and fleshy, are spatulate to slightly triangular; their surface is powdery, covered in pruina. In spring and summer, upright flower stems emerge from the rosette. They bear flowers in the shape of small bells, in a range of pink to orange tones.

Indoors, the most important thing is to provide it with very bright light (near a window), a rather dry atmosphere, and temperatures between 10 and 25°C. It is an easy plant for beginners if care is taken to avoid excess water and it is not relegated to a dark room.
The Echeveria 'Nina' can be grown both indoors and outdoors, provided it is given plenty of light and a very well-draining soil.
It can be put outside as soon as temperatures exceed 10°C, in full sun and sheltered from rain, but must be brought back indoors in autumn before the first frosts.

Placed on a console near a window, the Echeveria ‘Nina’ does not go unnoticed: install it in a low, terracotta pot with a mulch of light-coloured gravel that isolates its rosette from moisture. It also finds its place in a small display of cacti on a tray. For a more elaborate décor than a simple row of succulents, you can pair it with other Echeveria, various Kalanchoe and small cacti like the Astrophytum myriostigma.