The aloe polyphyllas

For many people aloe polyphylla is the must have aloe. The beautiful spiral and the fact that it is one of the hardiest aloes both adding to its attraction.  I have three now, that is if you count the cored multihead one as one plant.  It's still growing well and may be crunch time to decide what to do. Leave it so as not to risk loosing it, or cut it up to at least give two plants.

There are 6 heads in total all about the same size. I figure I could cut down the middle to give two clumps with roots, or cut two heads off to keep a multi-headed plant and separate the rest with or without roots. Either way, some of it is going to have to planted out at some point soon, they are getting too big for pots and grow so much quicker in the ground.

The second plant is one given to me a friend after I managed to kill all my seedlings.  We both got seeds from the same place at the same time, only he managed not to kill his. I am slowly getting better with seedlings due to my mangave hybrids and a few tests on random seeds, so maybe I'll have to try again.  Anyway it has been potted into a 30cm pot to give it one more year in which I can bring it inside.  I will probaly just place it where the plant will be in the new section of the rockery.

I think in the Uk they need to be about 30cm at least to survive planted out, even then I will most likely cover it just to give it that little extra protection.

The final plant is the large one. It sailed through winter without any damage.

The exciting news is that it is flowering again, having had a year off last year.

It will be a couple of months before the flower is fully open, but good to know it is back to flowering.

Shifting from winter to summer

This weekend was another sunny one, so time to start unpacking the greenhouse and uncovering the succulent rockery.  It is a little earlier than I usually do this and still a little risky, but with no work trips in the next month I can move things back if any heavy frosts are forcast.

The succueltn rockery is planted to be hardy for London winters, this means the covers are more to keep the plants in top condition.  It therefore doesn't take long to take the two long vegetable cloches off.

There doesn't seem to have been any damage and if this summer is anything like last the growth will be amazing with such an early start. Most of the plants are well known to be hardy, like the yuccas, agaves and aloe polyphylla.

I was looking at the agave parryi hk1684 and like everything it has grown so much since being planted.  This has to be my favourite form.

Then you have the odd test plant.  In the Uk gastroaloes are becoming more common. These seem to be quite hardy and even in last cold winter they were all fine in my greenhouse so last summer one was planted out as a test, gasteria armstongii x aloe aristata.  It sailed through without problems.

There are a few major changes planned for the rockery this year.  Things have grown much quicker than expected and some of the plants have got too big, or just don't work in their locations.  So hopefully will have some good updates on the changes as we get into summer.

Aloe polyphyla: update 1

So the aloe polyphylla has been growing nicely over the last few weeks.

The big question has always been what to do with the new heads: leave them all attached or risk removing them.  Let's face it a multi head aloe polyphylla would look amazing, my main plant is spectacular enough on it's own, without needing multiple heads.

So a multi-head plant is a given, 2 or 3 heads will be left attached to the old plant. The question has been can the other heads be removed and re-rotted.  I had heard that aloe polyphylla can be tricky to re-root, which goes against most succulents. A bit of research suggests that they will root ok, so now for some tests.

There is one little head slightly separate to the rest, so a perfect test subject.

It was cut off with a little bit of the main plant

Someone pointed out that this photo looks like a mole with a very fancy hat.  Now they have said that, it's all I can see.  Anyway, it will be dried off for a couple of days  then planted up and hopefully we'll see roots.  If this one works,  I can start taking other heads off to give me a few more plants to play with.

It's all about aloe polyphyllas here

So the main event in the garden so far this summer has been the aloe polyphylla flower.

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?