Thanks for the info & nice pix, Kniphofia! To me, they ALL look like Aloe hemmingii! LOL The last bunch I bought (the 1st pix shown here, do look slightly different & I'm leaning toward Aloe harlana on those. I will compare the flowers when they decide to bloom & see if I can tell differences then. Your flowers look different from what I remember of my A. hemmingii when it was blooming. I think I need to dig out some pix! :) Actually, I don't think I've seen ANY Aloe flowers that look the color of yours! Hmmm!? ~Rosemarie

Seriously, though, put it on the window sill by itself. The leaves will drop into other plants and root like made crazy. I had one 4" plant that I put in a small square garden in front of my house between the front door and driveway. That bad boy flowered and dropped all of its leaves afterwards. I had, not kidding here, over 300 plants growing the following spring. They were in the bricks of my house, in the cracks on the driveway next to the garden, in pots next to the garden, and even in a little nook between the driveway and garage door that had nothing but pine needles in it. I have since pulled them all up at the base so as to get the root. The pot that was next to the bed (which is in one of thosed raised metal pot holders) had about 10 caladiums in it and they were all choked out by the 50 or so B. tubiflorum now growing there. I haven't gotten them to flower since taking them out of the ground. I don't water them and god for bid, I don't feed them. They now sit about 10 feet from any other dirt! I wish everything grew as well!

Forum members.... Nice to read your comments...and very interesting to read the comments posted by herman2. Mismatching fig varieties can be a trap that we all fall in sooner or later. Location, location, location. I bought that "Texas Blue Giant" before I realized that I had such a short growing season. Now, I'm much more selective about the varieties that I grow. Currently I now have: Kathleen's Black * Black Marseilles-VS * Red Italian...unknown variety Dark Portugal * Black Mission * Bronx Dark...unknown variety * Big Brown Turkey...heirloom fig * Atreano-Belleclare...(the real Atreano) Hardy Chicago * All trees marked with * are too small to produce figs, and are on "trial". The "Red Italian" is probably very much like "Hardy Chicago". This year has been not so good. The "Atreano" produced a large main-crop, yet some have still not ripened. Since 2007, this is the first year that this variety was a slight disappointment. However, I did a radical root-chop in early Spring, and I'm sure my trees were set back because of shock. The "Red Italian" made some very sweet little red-black figs, and this year it was my winner. With the good comes the bad...it can split in rainy weather if the roots get waterlogged. I grow figs because I want to eat delicious, ripe fruit...so, any variety that does poorly in my area will be culled...even if it has a famous name. I have been concentrating on some local, unknown varieties that have been grown for many decades by families in Brooklyn, and The Bronx. I have NEVER seen any evidence of FMV on any of these locally-grown, backyard trees, and few, if any, are protected. Sources for "clean" Atreano-Belleclare try: Zaino's Garden Center, Westbury, NY (Long Island) Dan's Cajun Figs Durio Nursery...cuttings from my "Atreano" and "Red Italian" trees went to Dalton for propagation. Hope this may help. Frank

Not sure how the plant was identified as an Aloe arborescens. Leaves (even despite the lack of teeth) does not look like an Aloe arborescens rosette. Looks more like Aloe pulcherrima, a much rarer, but certainly toothless plant that has a lot of smaller leaves like your plant in the photo above. Color is likely just due to stress. by the way, there are several other spineless aloes, too: Aloe reynoldsii, sheilae, inermis, fleurentinorium, kommagasensis, kahinii, haemanthifolia, buhrii and scobinifolia (and possibly some of the smaller grass aloes).