I am afraid that you overwatered them...the leaves look very waterlogged - watery yellowish-greenish color IMO. Were there any roots when repotting?

Sunburn could look similar sometime, but I wonder how sunny and hot is it by the windowsill? Could you indicate where are you located? (It is good idea to put general location or at least growing zone by your name...)

See I agree wth you, I thought they looked waterlogged too! But I've watered them once since repotting nearly three weeks ago; and my mix if anything I was worried was TOO MUCH free draining! So I can't see how this has happened!

I can't remember exactly what the roots looked like when I repotted, but it definitely had some.

And I'm in the UK, but this window is much hotter than you'd expect for here. But again, I wouldn't have thought the weather here, even when it's hot would be enough to scorch them.

So I'm really not sure what to do!

-and thanks for the tip! I will change my name :)

I actually think they are underwatered. This happened to my aloe when I repotted to gritty; weekly was not enough for them. If you moved them to a sunnier window (is it south facing?) they will tan up like this; with more water they will regain their plumpness and green up more. They are looking quite skinny right now. Aloe is one of my thirstiest succulents; I honestly think it would love being kept almost moist. If I remember to, I water it twice as often as my other succulents, and as a reward it has gotten quite fat and lightly tanned and then completely filled the pot. Try going to weekly and see if it responds.

I don't want to dismiss any problems related to watering, but my Aloe plants, especially Aloe vera have all turned a little brown when I repotted them. It also happened when I transferred them into the ground. Sometimes it lasted for several weeks, but all eventually returned to normal color. So perhaps the color problem is simply the stress of the repot?

Thanks for all the helpful comments! I think if it's not overwatering, which I can't see how it can be - It could be a mixture of stress and underwatering. It's gone from a dark shop, sold with excessively moist compost - to an extremely sunny, south facing window sill and very gritty compost.

I might try moving them to a less bright location, and water more often so see if there's any improvement.

Do you think there's any chance the soil is just too gritty for it to cope? you can see in the seedling picture the mix - it's around 1:1:1 Coir compost, perlite, gravel.

Oh ok, the previous place was growing them in the shade so they probably needed to be acclimated to brighter light.

Kinda like when we go to a sunny place in the winter. If you want them there gradually build them up to it. Also, they need more water in sunny places.

Yeah I think it's possibly been more of a shock to it than I realised!

Where did you buy the coir compost from. I bought a aloe vera plant from ebay and it was lovely and green when I received it but when I planted it in john innes no 2 and perlite it turned a reddish brown colour but I may have stressed it due to watering the plant after repotting it. I've now bought a aloe vera plant from ikea and it looks like they have just used fibres and perlite for the potting mix. I've placed the plant on a window sill that gets morning sun but some of the leaves are turning red but I don't know why this has happened as the instructions on the plant said to water sparingly, minimum temperature 12°C, place in a bright and sunny area.

It's always a good idea to give a plant a week or two without any direct sun (through a window or otherwise) after a repot, regardless of media. I find some succulents don't really care...primarily because of limited space I don't always follow this advice myself..but some succulents do, and all tropicals care quite a bit, so its a decent rule of thumb to follow.

Daniel

Me me - I bought mine from Amazon, it's the CANNA coco natural stuff. I don't know if it's the best quality or value, but the reviews seemed fine!

I bought my aloe vera from IKEA too, but I wasn't too impressed with the potting medium and the pot seemed overly crammed so that's why I chose to repot mine. Do you think your Aloe could be getting too much sun? Going from a windowless Ikea store it might be a shock to it, like the issue i've been having with mine?

rooftopbklyn - Thank you yeah, I wasn't aware of this before I posted on here as I'm fairly new to cacti/succulent/tropical care.

Would you recommend removing them from the bright window sill now to somewhere more shady? Considering they've been in full sun after replanting for around 3 weeks now, I'm unsure if this would cause more stress? but the UK is going into summer now, so the window sill is only going to get hotter and brighter.

I've taken mine out of the window and they have started to turn back green.

Rachel, I think I may have an answer for you. I can't really tell by your photo but by the leaf shape I'm pretty certain your succulent is not an aloe vera at all. Is your plant in the shape of a fan like mine?

If so, don't worry ... you have not stressed it. what you have is a beautiful ornamental spotted aloe chinensis, not vera. It's a slow grower and hates direct sunlight, which turns it reddish brown. Little plantlets lose all color and turn white in direct sun. You can acclimate it to full sun but very, very slowly, watching for color change. Still, my mom grew hers in full sun and it died.

Aloe chinensis likes shaded sunlight and only needs to be watered once a month or every two weeks during very hot weather. During the summer, it's a prolific self propagator, putting off tons of plantlets. These can be removed from the mother at the very base with roots and potted up separately.

I keep mine on my porch very far away from direct sun, where it receives bright shaded sunlight (high lumens) everyday. Enjoy your lovely aloe chinensis.

PS: Although ornamental, these are still medicinal, just not grown for this purpose. The gel of a cut leaf can still be used as any other aloe.

LatinLady - I think you are right! That picture looks exactly like mine! I noticed as well that it does grow in a fan shape rather than a rosette AND grows tonnes of plantlets - like you said! I've moved them to the back of my room where there's no direct sunlight and I think they are improving, the leaves are definitely less red now!

Just wanted to add that it is Aloe vera var. chinesis. See here: Cactus-Art Aloe vera chinesis. =)

Just to confuse things more - this plant was fan shaped (why I bought that particular one) and was called Aloe chinesis.

But it grew up to look just like my other Aloe vera plant. And both have yellow flowers and the spots have disappeared.

There are hundreds of Aloe varieties, so I wouldn't be surprised if your plant is a hybrid. The advice would be the same.

And here's a pup recently potted up. See how it has turned a little brown, too?

I'm sure you'll get it all figured out. Good luck!

LOL ... Crenda, you're going to make me rip out my hair! Ewwmayo offers a good link that explains that some varieties of chinensis revert to all green when mature. That's interesting and evidence of hybridization. I didn't know there were different varieties of chinensis.

Mine was brought from the Canary Islands and doesn't revert. My 3 large mother plants were 7 years old and retained their spots & fan shape. Unfortunately, they were quite heavy and I had to leave them in NYC last year when I moved to the Caribbean. I only brought one pup with me and now have just the medium sized one in the photo with its 3 pups.

Oh, I did want to mention to Raquel that these like to be pot-bound, all crammed in there with all their babies! They don't like to be fussed over too much ... Just leave them alone, water & feed occasionally, and they will be very happy.

I recall one winter not even looking into the pot or watering it. When spring arrived there were about eighteen pups in that pot. I noticed when the mother plant pups heavily like that, it will have a growth spurt that summer once the pups are removed.

What I've observed is many Aloe species start fan shaped and then grow to look like the bigger typical shape as they mature.

Here is one small example of mine. Three bottom leaves and plant was growing like a perfectly stacked fan, but all the new growth is in the typical Aloe form.

My mother in law grows several Aloe vera chinesis and they do end up looking a bit different over time.

Could be wrong, but that's my observation!

Thanks for all the info everyone, I'm learning so much from this forum! My plants are looking loads better now i've moved them away from the bright sun light, and given them a bit more to drink! I think for now I'm just going to leave them alone to get on with it, as my interference doesn't seem to be helping them! In terms of the exact type I have, I suspect I'll have to wait until they're more mature to see what they do - or as mentioned earlier I could have a hybrid!

P.s. I'll post some more pics tomorrow to show the improvement!

Hello, if any of you could offer me help with my Aloe Vera plant I would really appreciate it.

I have had my Aloe for three years now, & it's been doing excellent while inside near a well lit window. In the past few months, I hadn't noticed any new growth, & it still hasn't sprouted pups, although it's fairly large. I thought this might have been because the pot was getting too small. So my boyfriend & I decided to re-pot it into a wider, shallow pot & put it outside since the weather has been warm. We used potting soil since I didn't have any more Catcus soil.. I didn't think it was too big of a deal since it has been very hot. Well it started to rain here & there since we've had some thunderstorms, so I moved it out of the rain. But now it's starting to look terrible. Yesterday I re-potted it into a new pot with a mixture of Cactus & African Violet soil. I also removed unhealthy roots & trimmed the leaves that were drooping to the point they were starting to break. I also moved it back inside. Is there anything else I can do? I'm a little confused because although it looks really transparent & droopy from what looks like too much water, there is also some dryness & browning of the leaves. Do you think it was all just a huge climate shock with all the new changes together? Is it possible to have too much water & also have sunburn? I really don't want it to die, I'd be devastated.

Thank you,

Kayla

I've had similar problems to the ones in this thread... I would continue to check the roots, keep it in indirect sun, and out of the rain. I also added a lot more inorganic stuff to my cactus soil, after reading that aloes are really susceptible to root rot--the store-bought (I use Black Gold) had a lot of regular dirt in it, I added some sand and pumice.

If all else fails and you have healthy growth on the inside, you could just propagate it? I had a bunch of things that got all frostbitten and ugly this winter, and that was my solution!

Best of luck!

carimcaskill

I don't think you find many recommendation to use sand on this forum. Pumice, grit, perlite, scoria, turface and few other grainy substrates yes. Exception would be coarse sand, often referred to as horticultural sand. It should be grainy enough not to fall thru the kitchen sieve...hopefully, that's what you are using. It is best to specify when suggesting ingredients; many ppl get play sand and that is too fine to make well draining mix.

Yes, agree with Rina. Please do not use sand. ;-)

I don't cut plants apart like that, I give them a bigger pot. But if you need or want some babies take a few, not all. Reduce the stress on the plant.

After reading this thread, I realized I have a chinesis aloe. Lol. What brought me here though was because my whole aloe turned a light to medium brown. I recently (about 2 weeks or so ago) re.potted the thing into a bigger pot. He was in the small 4 inch plastic container that I bought him in over a year ago. So I did that. I fertilized him right away, which was the first time I’ve fertilized him this season.... it is spring here going into summer now. (I’m in zone 5b-6a (Western New York) depending on the map) anyways, I used potting soil and LOTS of perilite. The thing is, the soil feels very compacted. I even have poked a bamboo skewer into the soil to try to U.N. pack it some. Not sure if this is normal at first? The plant seemed to be doing okay, until I put him outside for about 4 days in direct sun (he was previously sitting in a south facing window sill in the house and did really well) I was told he needed more sun light by an avid Gardner so I put him outside. It’s rained on and off here for the past few days, so now that it’s brown, I’m not really sure what caused it because I did so many possible things that could have caused it. I mean, he was bone dry the other day before I watered him..... I was trying to let him dry out completely as I was worried about root rot. So I watered him thoroughly, but then it rained the very next day lol so was it under watered or overwatered? It was it because of too much sun? I’m so confused! Lol I don’t want the little bugger to die on me. I’ve grown quite fond of him! He’s a smaller guy, hasn’t grown much over the past year I’ve had him, and after reading this thread, I now know why..... these ornamental ones grow slowly. Can anyone help me? I’ve since brought him inside and out of any source of sunlight. I should add that it’s very hot and humid here during summer, as I’m right on the shores of Lake Erie

Houzz User, I would suggest just a few things:

1. Update your username (something more personal or fun)

2. Create a new thread with photos and your issues. Photos are absolutely needed for any helpful advice to be given for your Aloe.

3. Colour changes are not necessarily a bad thing. Can be but not always. Here is an Aloe Crosby's Prolific on my desk right now:

I have a aloe Vera plant I put it on a table in my corner of the frontroom where light from the window can get to my plant is this OK as iam new and I only got my plant today

@Allison Reed Right at the window is probably best. Post a separate thread with your own photos and details!

I now. Put. It in my bathroom window where it can get light