I like that,very pretty.
Kathi

those are very pretty

Thanks for the comments Kathi and houstontexas. I was hoping to show the flowers on A. boylei, but a slug got to them. Same thing happened last year...grrr.

A very pretty plant indeed.

Annette

Thanks Annette. It's one of my favourite aloes.

I'm not sure where you are on V. Island, but assume you're getting the cooler weather as well. I don't mind it at all because it's nice for getting some work done in the garden.

Linda, yes I'm really enjoying today, the heat was starting to get to me. I'm not that far from you I'm in Nanaimo.

Three-quarters of an hour from Buckley Bay to Aulds Road to be precise. :-) Perhaps you're familiar with it already, but I visited Diana's Garden Centre in Nanaimo a few years back for the first time and was delighted to see a great succulent selection there. The owner Diana couldn't be nicer or more helpful. I meant to get back there this summer but it never happened.

Linda,

One of my favourite small Aloes - kudos for growing it so well.

Linda, Diana's Garden Centre is one of my favorite places to shop. We're a few miles further down the road from there in Chase River (south Nanaimo).

Annette

Very nice aloe. How old is it to get that size of a clump? How often does it bloom?

Thanks Jeff. :-)

Annette, you're lucky to be so close. I must get back there next spring/summer for sure.

Mara, I'm trying hard to remember when I bought it and honestly don't rembember for sure. My best guess is about seven years ago. It has flowered every year but one since 2008. It didn't flower last year and I attribute that to it being repotted in the spring of that year. Here's another pic of it from 2009.

I also meant to say that it was just a tiny plant when I bought it. Here is a pic of a flower spike on A.boylei - I came across it again when looking for an older juvenna photo.

Mara, thanks, by the way, for all of your wonderful aloe pics. I cut back a bit on the aloes I had, but your beautiful shots are making me rethink this decision. I do LOVE these plants.

{{!gwi}}

What do you do with it in winter? is it in a green house or do you move it in and out? We are both 8b but I know that your 8b is very different from my brand of 8b. I am just wondering about your preparations.

I bring the juvenna into an unheated greenhouse for the winter. It's very easy to move around because of its size. The boylei pic isn't showing up for me, so I don't know if you can see it or not. I will try again using photobucket. The boylei is left outside with a rain cover and I also throw a blanket over it if it goes more than a few degrees below zero. As I'm sure you know, it's one of the grass aloes and is supposedly relatively hardy, but I've noticed a bit of damage on it even with the treatment just mentioned. It is in a cement pot, which wouldn't help with hardiness, although I've opened up the bottom so the roots can go as deep as they like. The hardiest aloes for me here - I'm borderline 8a/8b too I think, but much wetter, of course, in the winter - are striatula and aristata. Aristata is really tough. The problem with striatula is that if it does freeze back you won't get flowers during the growing season. It can take a lot of frost too. Maybe you are growing these already anyway. I tried leaving variegata out after reading that it was surprisingly hardy, but it didn't like that much and told me so by dying. It was in a pot, though. Do you grow any of yours outside?

{{gwi:607955}}

I bring the juvenna into an unheated greenhouse for the winter. It's very easy to move around because of its size. The boylei pic isn't showing up for me, so I don't know if you can see it or not. I will try again using photobucket. The boylei is left outside with a rain cover and I also throw a blanket over it if it goes more than a few degrees below zero. As I'm sure you know, it's one of the grass aloes and is supposedly relatively hardy, but I've noticed a bit of damage on it even with the treatment just mentioned. It is in a cement pot, which wouldn't help with hardiness, although I've opened up the bottom so the roots can go as deep as they like. The hardiest aloes for me here - I'm borderline 8a/8b too I think, but much wetter, of course, in the winter - are striatula and aristata. Aristata is really tough. The problem with striatula is that if it does freeze back you won't get flowers during the growing season. It can take a lot of frost too. Maybe you are growing these already anyway. I tried leaving variegata out after reading that it was surprisingly hardy, but it didn't like that much and told me so by dying. It was in a pot, though. Do you grow any of yours outside?

{{gwi:607955}}

I would like to get A. striatula. It is one aloe not offered through the years by local nurseries. Strange because it is so reputed to be hardy. I have grown A. dawei , A. vera, A macrocentra, Aloe greenheadii, a. grandideintata, A grassy lassy, aloe greenlii, a hybrid of macrocentra and striata and A zebrina outside with protection at times. Names most likely spelled wrong since i am winging it. Most "died " after the 25 year killer frost of 12 degrees followed by another equally bad one the next year and then the worst drought in awhile. but many are now sticking their heads back up throuh the ground. I see the Aloe dawei and aloe vera sticking their heads up. The A. grandidentata and macrocentra are up and blooming this year. same with the greenlii and greatheadii. They still are not thriving like they did when I lived in town ( 600' lower in elevation). I move the potted variaegata inside on the very worst coldfronts. It lived through the killer frost in the ground protected but started showing stress in the few spring rains that we had that year having lost its roots to rot so I potted it.. I think they need extremely good drainage and it is the wetness of your winters that it does not like. Mostly I move it agains the house and it is fine. If it dives into below 20 range , I start getting nervous.

I cover with blankets , frost cloths leaf stuffed pots , bubble wrap (thank you Norma for that suggestion). My yard looks like a trash heap and a Christo sculpture. I place a lot of pots in their winter spot , a stone patio with southern exposure and a lot of cement thermal mass pillars. That buys me a good 8 degrees, maybe more. The angled sun warms the stone.

Our winters are mostly very mild looking more like a z 9b - 10 with lows in the 40's and upper 30's and then we get the nastiest of cold fronts and dive down like a bomb and then bounce right back up therefore earning our 8b/8a rating.. I call it the 3-day winter. We get about three 3-day winters a year. In texas, basically anything can happen but usually doesn't, so everyone is just fascinated with the televised weather scare tactics. I am a weatherunderground fanatic. I am lucky because SO many people have weather stations within just a few miles.

Linda,

What I see pictured is a Gasteraloe - was there something else you meant to show us?

Mara, if I get seed I can send you some. I tried one of the g's (forget which one), but killed the seedling. Also tried A. cooperi and ecklonis outside just with rain protection but they didn't survive either. I would try ecklonis again because I think I overwatered it. I forgot polyphylla - mine has been in the ground, again with rain cover, for three years now, so it's tough and possibly the hardiest of the lot. May not like your summers though!? I'm a weather junkie too and follow the Environment Canada weather website closely. There's only one weather station on my island, but its location is much different than where I live because it's higher elevation and away from the sea. So, I have a few wireless sensors outside, but don't have a Stevenson screen - can't decide if I want to get that geeky about it or not, but may get one some day.

Jeff, are you certain? I actually grew this plant from Silverhill seed quite a few years ago when I got on a grass aloe kick. I was wondering about it too at one point a few years back and even sent a pic to Rachel at Silverhill and that's what she thought it was too, boyeli I mean, which would make sense given that I did buy A.boylei seeds from them. I wonder if it could be similar to the Dyckia platyphylla X that I posted a pic of before here? The seed was sold as platyphylla, but John and Connie at Peckerwood later confirmed that it was grow in an open garden setting and was actually Dyckia platyphylla X . So maybe boylei is the aloe part? This would explain why it seems more sensitive to frost than expected. What I do know for sure is that I grew this plant from seed with an aloe label!

Does anyone know if the crossbreeding of kniphofias and aloes has been attempted?

Sorry about the double pics!

I am sure some one will have the A striatula some day in my path. I am not in a rush for it. It is curious that it is not offered more to the colder than California but still warm areas of the country.

Linda,

I'd bet my last dollar it's not pure, but whether it's a Gasteraloe or an Aloeworthia...hmm, I'm not that knowledgeable. I'm also not familiar with that species that you thought it was (I never got into the grass aloes much) but am certain that lovely plant you have there is not pure - first, it's no grass Aloe, and second, the leaves give it away as a intergenetic hybrid.

Mara,

The Institute for Aloe Studies has your Aloe - aren't you going to order it and a bunch of others? Go to the 'Store' tab and Aloe striatula is there.

Here is a link that might be useful: IAS

When I googled the Aloe b*******, =Google coughed up a very different aloe with a very different flower.

Thank you Mike, I know I can mail away for it. I am not in a rush for it so I will keep my eyes open for it locally.

Mara,

Yours was the first plant I found for someone today, which empowered me to find a second person a plant (Micro and his Cara. socotrana).

Jeff = not Mike (who no doubt is a very nice chap)

Sorry about the name. I am challenged at remembering names. I need things pounded it that noggin.

Sorry to get back to this so late, but I was away on vacation. This pic of A. boylei from Eurica and Rudi's grass aloes website does not look entirely different from my gasteraloe, don't you think? I've had some good lessons this summer on buying seeds that turn out to be hybrids!

Here is a link that might be useful: Grass aloes

Gosh, they're all beautiful. I used to wonder what Jeff saw in his aloes but all of a sudden, I'm beginning to get into Aloes also and I surely didn't need another plant obsession.

Susan

Linda,

Looking at them again, yes, I'd have to say they look very different indeed, to me, using you plant photos of August 22nd and September 1st in comparison - for one, one doesn't have any teeth, and the other does. The flowers are remarkably the same (and in the first photo, don't display any gasteria-like tendencies, leading me to think that it's an Aloeworthia) but you'll find that with a lot of Aloes (and all of the intergenetic hybrids) - (1) flowers are used, in conjunction with (2) plant morphological characteristics, to ID a plant, but based on #2 above, I'd discount the similarity in #1. But, again, you're hearing it from a former Aloeboy. I've been away from them for so long I can't even ID an Aloe vera anymore.

Susan, if I lived in a warmer climate I think the first thing I would plant would be an aloe garden. :-)

Jeff, thanks for the observations/thoughts. My plant actually does have small teeth, but you can't really see them in the pic and they aren't as pronounced. It seems that it will be very difficult to ever find out what exactly this is, but I may try asking the aloe group.

Linda,

Are you speaking of the yoohoo Aloe group - like most other plant groups there which I subscribe(d) to, I thought it was moribund. I'm going to unsubscribe, I think, to the lot of them - almost the only thing I get from the groups I'm with is a reminder on how to be mindful of others image-wise (I'm hiding now since someone I know sent images too large to someone I know).

Haha - you can't hide, I know where you are! ;-) And, yes, that's the group. I know what you mean about them, but I'm not quite ready to unsubscribe to the Aloe, Agavaceae,or Tocoldforcactus ones even though I rarely (if ever) post on them. Earlier this morning I was looking at a beautiful succulent garden blog (with aloes), which was from a link in the aloe group email. The adenium group was my first one (that's how I really got into succulents), but I unsubscribed to that one several years ago.

Hello Linda
I live in Alexandria, Egypt (a climate very similar to costal parts of southern California) and I casually keep few plants.
I have been having an Aloe Vera colony for many years now (about 20 years), and to my surprise , I have had one of the old plants shoot a lovely flower.
The point is: I grow them in a balcony, so there will probably not be birds or insects to pollinate it. I have thought of using a brush to pollinate it (I am really eager to grow little ones from seed), but I don't know how effective would this be, and if there is any specific technique to do that other than merely passing the brush over the anther and the stigma of same flower/ neighbouring flowers. I have ONLY ONE PLANT in bloom, and I am worried it would not self polinate. Can you give me any idea on that?

Hi Mai, You live in an exotic location from my perspective! I am not all that knowledgeable about aloe pollination and somebody else here I'm sure knows more. I have read before that aloe vera is not self-fertile, but hopefully somebody can confirm this. You can separate some pups from the colony to start a new plant colony/clump, but I assume that you just want the experience of growing new plants from seed?