They are strange flowers, as it grows any lack of water on hot days results in it just flopping around.
I kept a close eye on the bees to see if they found it and what other aloe flowers were in flower at the same time. The aloe striatulas were flowering away and I brought a big pot of aloe aristata over from my parents. They are moving and I agreed to look after the pot until they were settled, very convenient.
The orginal plan was to take some pollen to a friend house, but their flower was way behind mine, and the two did not overlap. It shows how far ahead the rockery can get. So plan B, have as many flowering aloes around as possible, and hope the bees do their job and something is compatible.
A long shot, but you never know. Although now we do as look what I found.
Not exactly a massive seed pod harvest, but one is better tha none. I'm out there each day checking on it. The aloe aristatas also have a few seed pods, the aloe striatula still have flowers, so time will tell how many seed pods develop there.
The next stage is to see if any of the pods produce seeds. Then a whole other set of fun. To prepare I have also been trying to germinate a set of 50 aloe polyphylla seeds I purchased at the end of last summer. There is lots of information about germinating them by putting them in water, so this was the methd used.
After about 10 days half the seeds had germinated. By 20 days all but 4 had germinated which was amazing. They were potted up into groups and given my skill at killing seedlings I expected most not to make it. One pot full succumbed within a few days, going from the water to soil obviously wasn't popular. I hoped to maybe have 2 or 3 left to grow into plants. So was pleasantly surprised to have managed to keep 12 alive in one pot and 4 in another.
They are almost past the danger stage, hopefully they will not be so susceptable to damping off or to drying out. I have great plans for a few more polyphyllas; one in the main succulent bed, a couple in the new bed by the workshop and then some on the planned green roof. There is probably space for a couple in the front as well. Can you ever have too many?
this year the heat is atrocious, the good thing is I have a lot of blooms off of mine as u do.
ReplyDeleteYes the heat has made a big difference here, lots of firsts on the aloe flower front
DeleteNo, you cannot have too many Aloe polyphyllas. If They could easily grow here, an all-polyphylla garden would be a probability.
ReplyDeleteYour post is tempting me to try again. Having only killed two of them, I get one more try.
I wonder if planting larger sizes to cope with the heat would work the same as planting larger sizes to cope with the cold. Also using some sort of shade cover to break it in slowly.
Delete