First year growing spiral aloe polyphylla
Back in December '12, I started a few a.p. seeds that I got on eBay, and with beginner's luck, did pretty well with them. Germination was good, and I ended up with 5 seedlings that seemed to thrive on neglect. I have been gardening for decades, and got these seeds only because the plants are very striking, not knowing that large specimens reach almost a 24" width!
At 15 months, the largest plant is 7" across, and just moved to a 10" clay pot, which should be adequate for the rest of this year.
I've been reading everything available on a.p. culture. I'm no expert, but I've figured out some of the major factors for cultural success. These include keeping the roots cool ( This summer will be the first time these have gone outside. They'll be hanging just under an east-facing deck for early morning sun exposure, and protection from stronger sun and direct rain. If temperatures get too high, watering may include placing ice cubes around the edge of the pot, although I've never heard of this being done before.
My first seeds started effortlessly, and my new batch of seeds is challenging. Scarring the seeds with sandpaper apparently helps promote germination, and my chosen method is to carefully chip the seed case with the tip of a razor, then soak it for 48 hours. Germination has otherwise been very slow.
Here's a picture of my largest of the 5 original seedlings, ~7" wide, in a 10" clay pot. When acclimated, these can tolerate temperatures down to 25*F, and even snow! The rate of growth right now is remarkable.
I welcome any comments or questions. As I said, I'm no expert.
--Rick in CT
Comments (30)
hanzrobo
10 years ago
rosemariero
10 years agoRelated Discussions
A theory on aloe polyphylla ID--comments? spiral
Comments (13)An update: Having spoken to a couple of professional growers with extensive experience in aloe culture, I showed them pictures of my plants and was told that mine are indeed a.p., in spite of one plant showing an offset. Phew! In addition I believe it is possible to tell whether a young plant is a lefty or righty, as follows. (I'm told that if you hold your left hand over the center of the plant with thumb pointing straight down, cup your fingers a little, and if the spiral pattern matches the arc formed by your fingers, the plant is a leftie. A right hand spiral is defined by the same technique with the right hand and fingers.) Having defined that, if you look closely at the structure of a leaf on a mature plant, you should see that one edge of the leaf is a simple, sharp "V" shape, while the other edge of the leaf is a sort of flattened/"blunt" angle. A cross section of the leaf would show that the leaf has an outline defined by 4 angles, resembling a single-edged blade. If you are looking at a leaf on the nearest side of the plant, a "sharp" angle on the left edge of the leaf would indicate a right handed plant, as defined above, and vice versa. I think this differential can be observed on plants as small as 4" (~10cm) diameter. Anyway, this is a minor detail, but I enjoyed figuring it out, assuming I got it right. If my observations are wrong, let me know! I attached an article on a.p. culture that was very interesting--great pictures too! Thanks, --Rick in CT Here is a link that might be useful: aloe polyphylla culture and pictures....See MoreAloe polyphylla?
Comments (30)Thanks for the input, rredbeard...I haven't gotten around to pulling it from its pot yet. I may do that this weekend. It seems to have perked up a tad in the last few weeks, perhaps due to the lovely weather (upper 60's/40ish lows) and more regular watering. I think it will still lose some outer leaves, but the center leaves have started to fatten up. I think I just stressed it with underwatering to "dry it out" when it wasn't breathing on the glass shelf. (To clarify--over winter, I put it in the south-facing glass slider door on the glass tiered shelves I bought for my phal orchids. It was sitting directly on the glass shelves with no airflow under the pot. This made watering less frequent, as I'd peek under the pot to see if there was still condensation underneath and just wet the medium around the plant a couple times a week, but I noticed in early spring that some white fungus was starting to form in that humid environment (!!!)...only on the bottom of the pot..and I propped a side of the pot up at an angle after cleaning the bottom. That's when I overdid the drying regimen before placing it outside...propped up on an angle.) I may add more potting soil or compost to the mix when I inspect the roots, but I think I will stick with the granite chips. After all, don't they grow in granite chips/dust in Lesotho? I always have grit (granite chips) on hand for the chickens and used it for aeration and drainage, although I probably went too heavy on the ratio to MG Cactus mix. And the pot isn't as bad as it looks. It is only glazed on the sides and it is a shallow, wide dish with a large drainage hole. The water drains almost immediately, but the chips absorb enough moisture to remain moist to the touch for a couple days in warm temps. The light color should help in keeping the roots cool on warmer days, as well as the dappled shade that it receives from the deck railing and tree after noon. (Ok, ok...and I HATE terra cotta. I won't go there until I kill this one!) I'll keep you posted...I'm curious to see if the AP dug new roots into the granite mix or not. if it's contained within the peaty original mix around the rootball, I guess I'll have to consider a lighter mix like you suggest. Your most helpful tip was that it does not need a dormancy period. I won't worry about harm from lightly fertilizing at this time of year. I'll wait another week or two until it improves a little more and recovers from my inspection, and I generally give it a drink of the orchid fertilizer (distilled water/weekly/weakly). A handful of compost added to the mix should also serve as slow-release nutrients over the winter...I should have some nice aged compost left in the corners of the bin. Wish me luck!! Sunshine...See MoreAloe polyphylla not twirling....
Comments (12)The two in the ground and 3 younger ones now in 15g pots waiting for new beds to be constructed are doing just fine, Jeffrey. I bought the new ones for $15 each two years ago at the SFSCS show when they were in 5g pots. Xanthoria, if you mean UC Berkely horticuture, they are growing them from seed, and are worth more than the tissue culture variety. Better genetics, hybrid vigor, etc. The tissue culture plants seem to pup at very young ages. This is NOT normal species behavior. There are folks buying the tissue culture plants inexpensively, and selling them for a hefty profit on EBAY at the pre-tissue culture prices. Buyer beware! d-r, $395!!! wow. A big mature plant is certainly worth a pretty penny or two, but 39,500 of them, I dunno. I paid $90 each for the pair in the ground back in 2002 when they were in 7 gallon deep pots. It was a bit of a gamble then since everyone was telling me they would not last very long. I didn't tell the plants, and they seem perfectly happy with their home. ;) Left and Right spirals: They looked like this a couple of years ago. They were lazy this year, no blooms, no seed: Brad...See MoreAloe polyphylla
Comments (21)They seem to love our SF Bay Area conditions, and I've planted out dozens of them in client's gardens and have yet to lose one. They do get big with time, between 2.5 to 3 feet across. There are some nice big examples of them at the University of California at Berkeley Botanic Garden on African hill, and also at San Francisco Botanic Garden. The one in my photo is in a front garden in the Oakland hills, there are more photos of them elsewhere in this same garden with lots more succulents. I've had friends who are experienced growers with other succulents who tried growing them just the other side of the bay in Atherton, where they didn't appreciate the extra summer heat at all, and fried their roots, even though they were in the ground. I haven't had issues with them rotting from too much water collecting on the foliage, but I do try to plant them at a slight angle or on slopes in general. Here is a link that might be useful: Aloe polyphylla...See Morerredbbeard
10 years ago
Stush2049 Pitts. PA, zone 6
10 years agocactus_cowboy
10 years agorredbbeard
10 years agoI guess it likes the potting medium!
This picture is the same plant, one month
before the previous picture, in a 4" pot:
xerophyte NYC
10 years agorredbbeard
10 years agoThanks for the heads-up. I think you saved me a lot of frustration had I not buried the pots. Your plants now get full sun in a southern exposure? Has yours flowered yet?
When I repotted the pictured plant a couple of days ago, there was a good deal of new orange/yellow root growth, and now I wish I'd taken a picture of it. Here's a pic from a few weeks ago of its root structure when I had it exposed.What else are you growing?
--Rick in CT
rredbbeard
10 years agoThese are growing so fast! After repotting everything just six weeks ago, some of the a.p.'s need it again. I didn't expect them to gallop like this! This picture shows the roots that have grown into the new medium in less than six weeks, a very healthy orange color. While these plants can tolerate mild freezing, I'm thinking that a winter dormancy isn't required here. My plants were indoors under lights all winter and made healthy growth.
Incidentally, the plant in this picture has distinctly blue-green leaves. Has anyone seen or heard of this variation before?
--Rick in CT
rredbbeard
10 years agoStush2049 Pitts. PA, zone 6
10 years agoxerophyte NYC
10 years agorredbbeard
10 years agonotolover
10 years agostanofh 10a Hayward,Ca S.F. bay area
10 years agorredbbeard
10 years agojools4
9 years agorredbbeard
9 years agojools4
9 years agorredbbeard
9 years agoI'm going to soak a few seeds and see what happens, but these will be frozen for a few days, and chipped first. In the mean time, I repotted 2 of the originals, to 8" pots, from the 4" pots I put them in just 3 months before. These orange roots really want to spread, so it's best to overpot. I have some 3 month old seedlings that will go directly into 4" pots tomorrow.
So far, equal parts of perlite, growstone, and MG cactus mix seems to keep them happiest.
jools4
9 years agoHi rredbbeard,
Just to update you, I started soaking my 6 A.P. seeds on June 7th and today I found 2 of them sprouted! That was much quicker than I expected. I will keep you posted on the others to see how long they take.
Now that they sprouted, can you tell me how to plant them? Do they go below or above the soil? if below, how deep? Any tips would be most appreciated!
Jools4
jools4
9 years agorredbbeard
9 years agoHi Jools,
Those seeds I started 3 weeks ago are doing pretty well. I took 10 seeds, gave them (2) cycles of freeze/thaw, then chipped them as I described earlier. Of the 10 seeds, 2 germinated within 72 hours, and by day 10 there was a total of 7 germinated. Maybe the others were duds, or maybe they weren't chipped right. Who knows?In answer to your question, I use a gritty mix for the seedlings too, and planted the germinated seeds 1/4" deep, including extra perlite to cover the seeds to help retain moisture, in a terra cotta community pot. A total of 6 finally made it (pictured). I put a maximum of 5 seedlings in a pot.
In a few days these will go individually into 4" pots, and after a couple weeks of recovery, I'll start acclimating them to outdoors. From here on, I'll overpot, just to save time.
Community pot==> 4" pot==> 8" pot==> ??When my larger seedlings (4" -- 8") first went outdoors, I was more than a little concerned bc all the plants developed tiny brownish freckles, which I thought was either fungal or bacterial, and I was all set to treat these when they spontaneously cleared up, with no damage to the leaves.
So far, the temperature here has stayed below 85ðF, and I have each terra cotta pot sitting in a dish which serves as a water reservoir, with that whole setup sitting in a larger container to shade the clay pot from direct sun. Remember, if the roots hit 85ð, the plant is toast. So far, this setup creates evaporative cooling, and I'm pretty compulsive about checking the pot temps, especially on the warmer days. I don't have a good spot to plunge these in the ground. As long as there's water in the dish, the unglazed pot will provide root cooling, and the plant can have its full sun. If the local temperature ever gets too high though, I won't hesitate to put the plants in the basement for a few days.I hope this helps. These are methods that seem to work so far for me, but I'm still experimenting....
Rick in coastal Connecticut
jools4
9 years agorredbbeard
9 years agorredbbeard
9 years agoThe largest of my aloes has been in a 10" pot for several months over the summer, and substantially outgrown it. I went to repot it into a 22 inch plastic half-barrel (HD), and realized that the spiral pattern had already started to show! This is the same plant pictured back in March '14, and it's now 20 months old, with ~55 leaves, 12" wide.
Although my methods aren't scientific, it seems pretty clear that this species doesn't require a winter dormancy. Over the past 2 winters here in zone 6, the lowest temp it was exposed to while indoors was 50ðF, and last year they survived well under simple flourescent tubes, getting watered regularly.
As a result, I theorize these plants had the equivalent of 3 or 4 growing seasons in just 20 months, which accounts for the rapid progress. Avoiding the trauma and possible root loss that can result from cold, dry winter storage also probably contributed to this progress. The plant in this picture is the same one shown here back in Feb/March.
These plants were slowly acclimated to almost full sun starting in late March. At first, the leaves developed some light tan freckling which cleared up on its own.
Here's a question: if this species needs only moderate-to-cool conditions and good drainage, could it be naturalized into a new, higher elevation area which has moderate, regular precipitation, with mild winters?
--Rick in CT
cdcd
3 years agoStush2049 Pitts. PA, zone 6
3 years ago
SoCal Stewart (San Diego, Ca Zone 10A/10B)
3 years agolast modified: 3 years ago
xerophyte NYC