The Bayer 3-in-1 stuff or the Bayer tree and shrub defense stuff, the common stuff from a big box store. The 3-in-1 stuff has the advantage of the fungicide also preventing the Rust infection some Aloes get in wet weather. Not that we've had much wet weather for five years, but last winter my Aloe speciosa had quite an infection. After treatment the new foliage has been flawless. However it should be noted after application to cut off or cover the flowers for two or three years so systemic-tainted nectar/pollen doesn't kill bees. Here there are lots of bees--carpenter, bumble, honey and California native solitary, so I've been cutting off the flowers on the plicatilis since treating it. Plicatilis the attraction isn't really the flowers anyway. I'm unsure how long the systemic stays in the plant, but because of the large bee population have a preference not to chance it. My strategy has become to either buy seed-grown small aloes, less likely to be infected, or buy them very small and immediately treat with systemic; by the time small seedlings are large enough to bloom the systemic should not be in the flower pollen/nectar.

Possibly 3 may be candidates. Aloe lineata will offset a lot and may make small trunk. Aloe ramosissima can be stunted. Aloe plicatilis might work but would be very slow. Never had good luck with A. dichotoma in small pots-rot. A. barberae is just too large unless you're talking a large bonsai pot. Don't think A. ferox, A. marlothii, A. khamiesensis, or A. vaombe would make trunks if stunted. A. arborescens might be too hard to stunt. A. rupestris offsets in small pots and has added benefit of red color in sun. Just not sure any aloes really like little root room. May be a self limiting project.

Many people here build their own soil mix. The most strongly advocated here seams to be 5:1:1 mix. or its cactus brother the gritty mix. If these are of interest just use the search bar on top of this page. At the very least you'll need a good quality cactus mix to which you want to add extra perlite and or gritty material such as crushed granite. You want a fast draining mix. You might also consider using a unglazed terracotta pot. If outside for the summer, you'll want to protect it from the rain to better control the watering.

rosemariero, thanks! Hopefully you'll be able to easily find Aloe africana! If not then you're welcome to drive up and pull weeds for africana seeds... j/k (kinda). So you're a big fan of how I pronounce Kalanchoe? :P Well... I do have a ton of Kalanchoes... many of which are blooming right now. So maybe I'll make another video but this time featuring nothing but Kalanchoes. I might end up awesomely pronouncing "Kalanchoe" around 20 times! I think my favorite is Kalanchoe uniflora. hoovb! I planted it in 2010. It was in a 15 gallon pot from Rancho Soledad. In my blog entry for this video... I linked to my other blog entry about Hercules (with before and after photos). Towards the end of that blog entry I included this link to your blog. Your collection of tree Aloes is better than mine! Have you already made a tree Aloe video that I don't know about? If so, then please share the link! If not, then you should make one! The way I rationalized it was... that maybe even a bad video of my tree Aloes is better than no video. Just saw the photo of the mockingbird perched on your Hercules. Around three years ago some mockingbirds actually built a nest in my Hercules. Then they would dive bomb anybody who got even close to Hercules. Hercules grew so fast though that the nest fell out when the leaves it was built on fell off. Well... the baby birds had already flown the coop so I suppose Hercules didn't grow that fast. But then the next year the mockingbirds rebuilt the nest in Hercules. It's still there but empty now. I wish that I had pointed it out in the video.