My Aloe polyphylla seedlings
stupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6a
3 years ago
Earlier this spring (after reading Kara's A. polyphylla thread, it's all your fault, lol!) I ordered a packet of 25 A. polyphylla seeds from ecotree.net. To my surprise, a packet of 100 seeds arrived!. They said that they were seeds from 2018, so I decided to plant them all. I figured that germination might be a bit iffy and that I'd get a low germination percentage.
After following directions, and watching the video on ecotree's site, I scarified (really not knowing what I'm doing here) the seed and planted them on April 4. Here they are on April 26...
and here they are now...
Total count is 76 seedlings! Really happy with that germination rate :-) but what on earth am I going to do with that many plants, lol! At this point I'm just hoping I can keep them alive. From what I gather, the trick will be to keep them cool enough without being too cold.
Hopefully, everything will go well and I'll have lots of plants to share with people.
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SoCal Stewart (San Diego, Ca Zone 10A/10B)
3 years agostupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6a thanked SoCal Stewart (San Diego, Ca Zone 10A/10B)stupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6a
3 years agoRelated Discussions
Have Aloe polyphylla/Spiral aloe.
Comments (3)Hi-I notice that you're both in zones 8 and 9, so just a word of caution here: a.polyphylla is completely intolerant of temperatures >85° inside the pot--cool roots are a must. Speaking from personal experience, keep the pots themselves shaded completely from direct sun. You might even put a few ice cubes around the edges of the pots if it gets very warm. Here are a few of mine just a couple of hours ago. I don't worry unless the temp goes below 25°, and mild snow is a relief to them: The 2 largest pots are 22", and the other 2 are 17", and in need of larger pots. As a rule of thumb, the pot should be at least 2" wider than the leaf span. Happy growing! Rick in CT...See MoreA theory on aloe polyphylla ID--comments? spiral
Comments (13)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....See MoreALoe polyphylla
Comments (12)Stan, I think you missed my point. I was only talking about possible negative effects of tissue-cultured plants on the cultivated population. None of this effects the diminishing wild population. Comments about 'hybrid vigor' refer to the complete absence of genetic variability in the new tissue culture produced clones. Alan Beverly's concerns about them 'lacking hybrid vigor' comes from the fact that the species is a 'obligate out-crosser'. Alan throws out the weakest 25% of his seedlings, maintaining the genetic variability and 'vigor' of the wild-type while in cultivation. Since the species in cultivation was formerly rare and expensive, and plants now offered for sale are predominately the inexpensive clones, over time the variable 'wild' genotype may be completely overwhelmed by the identical cloned genotype. We already know that the growth habit of the clones is different than the wild type. Lack of genetic variablity in any population is a prescription for failure. The wild population Lesotho is almost extinct, and it is illegal to export plants or seeds from wild populations. If one of the goals of cultivation is to maintain the genotype of endangered species, the recent predominance of cloned plants does threaten the quality of the cultivated population. Just try to get seed by crossing of two identical clones. :)...See MoreMy A. Polyphylla seedlings....Christmas came early!
Comments (5)Yeah, your right, much better than Christmas. These guys take off once at this size, and I can only imagine what will happen once the cooler weather hits. They really like dilute miracle grow every once in a while. Probably by next spring I would really like to pass a few of these guys off to fellow members here and a few locally here to friends. Glad you like them! B....See Morestupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6a
3 years agoTime for an update... here they are on Aug. 31
Total count ended up at 77. A couple are even starting to spiral... here's one of them
A few of the trays I had under lights, but they didn't do as well as the ones that were just in a window. Kept them inside because I figured they wouldn't like the summer heat and humidity. Now they're all on a low shelf in my greenhouse.stupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6a
3 years ago
Patti Chicago Zone 5b/6a
3 years agostupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6a
3 years agostupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6a
3 years ago
Stush2049 Pitts. PA, zone 6
3 years ago
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stupidlazydog CT zone 5b/6aOriginal Author