The road to recovery.

A few weeks back I posted about my poor aloe zebrina that needed to be top cut after damage (the post can be found here). I finished with this picture of the top cut, which I rested on some gravel to dry off.

The top cut has been resting in the gravel since then and looking today it has started to root nicely.

Normally I would expect the roots to form around the edge, but these are coming in a very neat circle through the middle.  The next stage is to get it settled into soil.   I want to encourage the roots to grow down, so I gently rested the base on the soil and then filled a little more.

Finally I added a layer of gravel around this to keep it stable.  The idea at this stage is to encourage as many roots as possible and not worry about the plant depth. Once it is established and showing signs of proper growth it will be re-potted much deeper to give a much more stable plant. As always, it will be put somewhere out of the sun and warm to protect it during the next few weeks.

This one is well on the way to recovery and hopefully will back on form again by the end of the summer.