Thanks for replying Christine! Yes, I had that baby Aloe growing green (very green! compared to mother plant --I'm still looking to see if I took a photo that ever included it) in plain water plastic cup! It had a developed root system and I was following instructions (general) for converting all my water only plants back to soil as unfortunately, we have West Nile carrying mosquitos that love to take over indoor pots of water, so only solution is to convert everything that is doing great in water to either full hydroponics (missing the pots I have lots of the Deco system clay pellets)---or back to soil. Back to soil was easy choice as I already had the original pot the plant was already growing two years in it. Sad story---- it got knocked over in its soil pot a year ago---- so I put it in water But now with new soil in the same exact pot that it came out of with a new water developed root system back in January 2014 I repotted it and had it in good sunny location (exactly where it thrived for two years prior). So its a mystery to me what I could have done wrong....(right, it originally fell over all by itself, who knows what reason was...I did not touch it, found it on floor one sad day).... There is more green on the tall stalk, but one of the side ones withered away now.... so strange, I'm still being hopeful as long as its green somewhere, right? What did I do wrong so I don't repeat the same error! Thanks again for replying!

In a effort to be clear I have rewritten my post about Dr Ingrams. I have used contemporary language to the best of my ability. If there are still questions of what I am saying I will attempt to try again... Im tired of people messing with Dr Elaine R. Ingrams. Dr Ingrams be working hard, real hard. Dr Ingrams got courage and character just like Superman. Dr Ingrams, that girl know about her compost tea (dirt too!), she in the front row (snap) sitting on the corner. Dr Ingrams was telling people to geek up their compost tea. Somebody found out she was doing wrong and put it in the funny papers. You know everybody seen that! Dr Ingrams jumped up and told everybody they were right with the quickness. She covered that butt and dont care what nobody say behind her back. People be talking about they be calling Dr Ingrams all the time. I bet they be calling her when she get off work too, and she talk to them anyway (hmmph). I am NOT having no talking about Dr Elaine R. Ingrams behind her back just so you can stay stuck on stupid. Dr Ingrams is a real nice lady and helps everybody, even if they talk funny to her. Dr Ingrams take them just like they come, she dont pick and choose. If you wants to talk about somebody with me you best be picking somebody else. If not, you can talk to the hand Blutranes

I have always had problems with Elvas. This is the second year I was trying to grow one and see the flower, and this was the second time I bought a new bulb to make sure that it is not me... But it seems it is me or Elvas is quite unreliable just as White Nymph is. I have not seen Elvas flower in real life that developed fully yet. So next year, I will have to buy a new one once again. One has to keep steadfast if the is curious. And it was so interesting. I picked up a bulb from the same box and sent it to Cindee, and her Elvas bloomed for her like a dream. Her bulb and my bulb were sisters or brothers, yet mine did the same as the other one last year, and dried the flowers down on the top of the 5 inches scape. We have talked about Elvas not too long ago and we got a lot of similar stories and we got a lot of opinions from successful owners that Elvas was one of the easies for them. I start to suspect that maybe Elvas is sensitive to certain weather, and maybe Southern California is not good for it. Who knows.

Hi 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