by Jim Gray
(Exeter, Devon, UK)
Spikey, succulent, beautiful variegated leaves, leaves form a feathery appearance, top heavy so it tends to sprawl out and tip the pot over, each individual leaf is about 2.5 to 3 inches long
Drought Smart Plants reply:
Hi Jim, this is the beautiful and elegant Aloe variegata. This is the result of years of enthusiastic watering and care, and very little pruning or re-potting!
Here’s what I would do:
If you or another gardening type take the top growth of each spire and unscrew it like a light bulb, each with oh, about 5-8 leaves on it, this will give you a new plant. The roots can be seen as whitish bumps on the end of the ‘light bulb’ and when planted in fresh potting soil they’ll emerge. Keep the new cuttings on the dry side, and in bright light, and they’ll end up replacing the old plant. You can be pretty cruel to these guys, they love it!
The other option is to get some cactus potting soil, or regular house plant soil and add more small gravel for drainage and repot the whole thing into a bigger pot. The problem with this is you’ll take up more room in your office!
See these pages for more:
Aloe
Succulent Care
Succulent Plant Propagation
Happy Succulent Growing!
Jacki
Comments for Orphaned spikey plant in office
| Sep 22, 2011 |
Siblings by: Jim Gray Aloe Jacki, Thanks for the very quick reply and the really interesting information you have kindly provided. I’m glad that this plant can be propagated so easily. I will get about 5 or 6 new plants out of it once I get the pots and potting soil that I need. To keep the population boom in the office under strict control, I’ll take some of the little blighters home with me and put them on the window sill in my conservatory. Kind regards, Jim |
