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.

Thats real similar to what I made last yr. 'cept we're lots cooler so I double walled it and no slits. Opaque plexi for the top which came off early every morning, every time it was above 50 and no rain. My plants did very well in it ... Think a cold snap made me bring them in a night or two but then right back out. Mine is sheltered from wind on two sides and I used some extra plastic kinda loosely folded for a little insulation in the bottom. I don't have a max/min themometer but what testing I did do had me pretty happy down to near freezing outside with nary even a warm milk jug. Crude but effective and did double duty as a potting table.

I wanted to show the progress of my two A. polyphylla, but having issues adding the photos so bare with me a moment... I got them both in late March of this year. I had some better photos where my hand was beside them when I first potted them up, but I’m having trouble getting them from the cloud. Hopefully you can get the idea. Ok so the first two are the same plant end of March 2020 and then today. It’s grown quite a bit but no spiral yet. The ruler in the top pic shows that it was about 4 inches across in March. Edited to add: I finally got the March pictures from the cloud. WHEW! Here is the smaller one. It’s grown quite a few new leaves & has filled out. No spiral here yet, either. I’m happy they made it through the heat of the Summer. We’ve had some cold nights down in the 40’s F. I haven’t covered them so far. Do I need to? Thanks in advance for any advice you can share.

Bear in mind that this is the only aloe species (that I know of) that requires constant moisture, cool temps, and bright light. DON'T reduce the light level--that will kill it for sure. These should have a potting mixture consisting of perlite, pumice gravel, and any commercial potting mix, in a ratio of ~3:3:2, but this ratio is approximate. The mix you'e using would be ok if you add pumice/GrowStone, which should be available at most hydroponic stores. This species requires cool feet, and nearly full sun, even as a seedling. Water it thoroughly every day with cool water. I don't know what part of the country you're in, but as soon as the evening temperatures are staying >35°F, place it outdoors in a spot protected from full noon sun, and shade the pot so that it doesn't warm up much. I've never planted any of mine in the ground, but I understand that they are slug magnets, and won't survive. These grow very fast when they're small, and I suggest that the pot size should always be at least 2" wider than the plant. To save time, I'd start with a 5" or 6" terra cotta pot, not plastic. Later, repot into 12", and later into 17" or larger. I'll be happy to give you more advice if you like, but hopefully this information will help your little plant to recover. Healthy roots are bright orange. Here are some pictures of mine from last year. The snow shot was in early March 2016, and the largest pots in that picture are 22" and weigh close to 200 pounds. Once they're large, they're fine with a mild frost or borderline freezing conditions down to 25° at the lowest. The other picture shows a few of the others on a south stairway. I generally position other plants to shade the pots. Most of these are badly in need of larger pots! I hope this helps! Rick in CT all images copyrighted 2016©RRedBBeard@yahoo.com Same day, temperature ~29°F--they're lovin' it! The snow was almost entirely gone by the end of the day: Most of these are badly in need of larger pots--my bad!! These are among those buried in snow, shown above.