Now I am going to be honest because you asked what we thought of this,well here goes:

I think it may be too wet, the baby on the top should have been taken off and just layed on top of the soil to root.

I also think it seems to me that it was buried too deep in the soil. This is an African plant so perhaps the soil was not right.

The lower leaves should be removed when they dry up, and removed so bugs can't hid. The leaves and junk should be removed around the plant. It should never be watered from the top.

It should be put into perhaps a pot with lots of small rocks, and cactus mix and perhaps grow with protection. Nor harsh sun, and not dramatic cold to burn those leaves, it is quiet a delicate plant. It is a miniature, and grows on the 30th Par. So. of the Equator. Wide spread but extinct in some locations. Grows in Natal, Orgnge Free State, several other small countries. A very pretty delicate plant. It seems to be growing in grasslands. Norma

Thankyou Norma,The leaves are not usually, there. They were leftover from my padding for the freeze that just passed. It is growing on a slanted hill of limestone rubble and thin dirt that has a great deal of drainage. I am not one who grows things in pots, mostly. I grow in beds and in natural rocky landscape. I have many Aloes growing successfully outdoors . I do push that envelope and I pay at times.

San Marcus Growers says that in cultivation it gets to 19 degrees and in Habitat it took 13 degrees (I am not sure what that means since I wasn't aware that it got so cold in S. Africa). I am 30 degrees north of the equator. True my land mass has a continental landmass to the north of me and they have mostly ocean to the south of SA which probably moderates their temps considerably in comparison..It sounded like A. aristata would be a good candidate for a exterior aloe with an occasional protection on extreme cold fronts. The freeze did not hurt it with minimal protection where it did hurt the Aloe maculata which I have kept alive growing outside for 20 years.

I will raise The A. Aristata up. I think an armadillo/wild hog up rooted it and I put it back in in a hurry one one night after I discovered it.

Here is a link that might be useful: San Marcus Grower's aloe hardiness list

WA,

Those temperature figures are in Celsius?

And it can get cold in the RSA - witness where Aloe polyphylla comes from (actually Lesotho, but the point's the same). The Little and Great Karoo Deserts are like any deserts - lands of extremes.

I never could grow this plant well, but I suspected one of the reasons was that the drainage wasn't right, as Norma points out.

Armadillos and human beings are the only life forms that can contract leprosy.

Farenheit, I apologize for my omission.

I wish you would have shared this information at first. That was important information that you withheld. Why did you even bother asking for help? Thanks, Norma

Mara is a very knowledged grower and has many wonderful plants and a lot to offer the cactus and succulent community...but like all of us some times we get stumped on somthing and need a word of advice...there is nothing wrong with that.

Mary