small leaved, spikey, dark green, no flowers

small spikey dark green fleshy leaves growing up a column, no flowers. Individual leaves tightly packed in column and lightly variegated, leaves about 1/2 inch long, column 4-5 inches tall. Very slow growing, has never flowered.


Drought Smart Plants reply:

This looks like either a very small Aloe plant variety or Haworthia - I'm more inclined to say the latter. You'll be able to tell if the margins of the leaf are actually toothed, with a little back curving hook (Aloe), or fairly smooth or more saw toothed (Haworthia).

I edited one of the pictures to make it a bit lighter, and you can see more detail - it most definitely appears to be a Haworthia, but sorry I can't give you any more than that - there are hundreds of different ones out there. It looks more like Haworthia margaritafera than others I have seen, so that may be a starting point. Of course, if you ever do see a bloom, that will be a dead giveaway as the flowers are completely different; Aloe flowers are several to many bell shaped flowers on a spike usually red or yellow, and Haworthia has white flowers with delicate green lines, only a few on a long stalk.

The reason you want to know for sure is that these two types of plants take different care.

Aloe succulent plants love full sun (or at least bright light) and very infrequent watering.

Haworthia prefers more shade, in fact they'll suffer and turn orange if the light is too bright for them, so curtain filtered light is ideal.

They also thrive on slightly more moisture in the soil, and although they are very drought tolerant little succulents, they don't mind more watering both in frequency and amount. No standing water though - no succulent will be able to take that.

Happy Succulent Gardening!
Jacki


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Succulent Care

Succulent Plant Propagation

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