Grant, I sent an email to you but had some difficulties sending. Please check and email me from here if the other didn't work.

It is interesting that the plants continue to grow well with the galls. I was under the understanding that it would severely compromise the health of the plant. My small collection is still mite free and i Quarantine when I bring plants home from the store. I have a feeling, that it is only a matter of time. Stanofth, Are you suggesting that the fear of galls is over emphasized and that we will learn to live and deal with this malady, and familiarity will breed a certain amount of laissez faire along with contempt. Are there Aloe mites in South Africa? I have heard that they came here from Europe. I am still hazy on my mite history. Is there an environmental factor that keeps mites under control in South Africa if they are there? I have oak trees with many galls on them. It gives them character. Their wood is treasured. I am not sure I want to become this type of accepting of the dreaded Aloe mite..

Thanks for sharing your garden, especially liked your comments. Al

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.