My mom gave me a piece of her aloe plant that had grown unruly and fell off. I planted it in rich absorbent peat soil mix.the tip leaves seem to be living and turning towards light but the base leaves seem shriveled. is this normal and am i doing this right? I have the plant within 2 feet on the sideof the window; what kind of light conditions, watering, any help would be lovely.
Sorry to say this Jordan, but a "rich absorbent peat soil mix" is exactly the thing not to plant it in. Aloes like a really sandy, well drained mix (like a cactus?). If the base has shriveled up and gone soft and brown then all might be lost. If is not muchy and the plant is still fine then water very, very little until spring comes and then replant it is a really sandy soil that own't hold a lot of water. If too much water has killed your aloe, don't feel too badly. It's happens all the time.
hm...the base leaves are not healthy looking but they're not dead. the leaves (is that what i call them?) near the top of the plant appear quite healthy and there are new shoots from when i got the aloe. haha i dont have the extra money to buy plants so i've been taking shoots from everyone to increase my plant collection. thank you!
I've had a strange relationship with Aloe Vera plants. Never knowing how much water is enough or too much etc. They do need to be in the sandy well drained soil and I think I have the water issue figured out. How is your plant doing now? I have several.....one very large and I think 3 others. Some of the outside leaves? on the smaller ones don't look so good but the inner leaves are healthy and growing. I read that they like to dry out first before giving more water to them. So I have been doing that for the past few months and they look better. I think I was afraid to give them too much water as I have lost several of these plants in the past. The big one is doing great also. I moved it further back from the window for the winter. Too cold & drafty I thought. I bought it last summer at the farmer's market and of course asked the people it's age and how they cared for it. They said it was in a bright window but when the full sun came around they protected it so it wouldn't burn ...... I suppose. So that's what I did for the rest of last summer. I has one pretty large pup on it and another tiny one had sprouted when I bought it. It has gotten quite a bit bigger since then. I was really paranoid that I would kill it but so far so good. I am sure if your little plant dies........your mother wouldn't mind giving you another piece to try again with. Let us know how it's doing. If I can figure out how..........I will post a pic of my large Aloe Vera. I love it but it's kinda big for my small living room.
Padraigan.... i have the same kind you have in a fairly small pot liek a quarter of the size you got..... its unbalances so it falls over all the time. it seems to liek it it pops out a new shoot everytime
The people I bought it from at the farmers market last summer told me that at the time it was about 4 years old. I didn't asked them if this was the original pot they planted it in. I can't imagine it would have been. I am just going to leave it alone and I'm sure it will keep growing new pups. I'll take a new pic and post it to show how much the 3rd pup has grown since I took those two pictures. As long as it looks happy I would just leave it alone. Cheers for now.
Your Aloe Vera is gorgeous! Very healthy! I'd love to talk plants with you! We are in Kamloops too... Talk to you soon, I hope :D Jennifer rascaljade@hotmail.com
