Gardening - Aloe speciosa

Aloe speciosa, one of my favorite aloes. I love the color of this Aloe, bluish-green with lovely long leaves hanging down. The head is mostly tilted towards the sun, making it another interesting part of the plant.

The inflorescence is a tall upright with, initially red flowers, turning white as they mature, making for a wonderful look when the plant is flowering. In contrast the reddish stamens and orange anthers make it just that more special on closer inspection.

They grow in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape provinces of South Africa on rocky slopes. We saw a few of them when we walked the Zuurberg mountains, part of the greater Addo Elephant National Park.

[caption id="attachment_851" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Zuurberg mountains[/caption]

They grow nice and tall and can reach up to 5 meters, but this takes a long time. The plants in my garden is 3 years, in the garden, and my guess would be at least 5 - 8 years old.

Gardening by the ocean

Just when you guys thought I am set in structure, I am adding another heading page called "Gardening & Hobbies".

Why? This is, or was at least, a great part of being me. I love succulent plants in particular. Aloe plants are the main focus for the garden, but the smaller succulents has become our collecting hobby.

For now, we start at the beginning. Our house had no garden, in fact there is very little going on in terms of gardening where we live, due to the ocean salty winds, which kills about anything a normal garden would see. Succulents on the other hand are growing for the most part, but also be garden weed, in terms of the local species.

In 2011, I set out to develop my garden.

10 Bags of compost went into that sand heap!

By the end of the year (2011), it looked like this.

By then I also developed the garden inside the yard, but that is for later. The main backbone is the aloe. I use various smaller plants, 99% succulents to color the image.

Today this garden has grown well and looks like this.

Some of the plants here include:

Aloe thraskii (Dune aloe)

Small one flowering in the corner is a seed grown Aloe maculata, then a few Crassula species and the midsize aloe is a hybrid branching plant.

Above is a Aloe ferox with smaller aloe species hidden all around. In the bottom picture is an Aloe lineata about to flower with Aeonium 'kiwi' as additional color and a fine Delosperma as ground cover.

My favorite aloe for sure, is the Aloe speciosa in the bottom picture. They turn their heads toward the sun, blueish in color and they have fantastic raceme (flowers), which this one is doing for the first time this year, cannot wait.

Again lots of smaller aloes, and various species of succulents grow around these main plants, creating more and more height differences.

This is just a quick introduction to another part of the our rumbling ocean living space. Doing a blog without including something that is also close to our hearts does not seem fair and true to who we are. We will do posts about our plants in future, which include near 200 species of aloes, succulents like Lithops and other living stones, crassula (Jade plants) and other.

Aloe striata

Aloe striata is one of the favorite aloes for many succulent plant lovers and gardeners. It is a beautiful aloe and has the added benefit of no teeth on the margins.

I have 2 in the garden and with their fairly impressive inflorescence with reddish flowers, late winter, they present some color too.

If you are lucky you can see them in nature in full flower. They grow in Eastern and Western Cape regions of South Africa.

[caption id="attachment_155" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Aloe striata[/caption]

Above picture was taken just outside Addo (town), on the way to the Addo Elephant National Park, where they are used as borders for the roads inside the camps.

[caption id="attachment_157" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Aloe striata[/caption]

It is a stunning aloe and drought tolerant. Last time I watered my garden was in 2012! Take a look at them, if you live in moderate climates or can protect them a little in winter in snowy areas.

Reference:

Aloes : The definitive guide. Carter, S; Lavranos, J.J.; Newton, L.E.; Walker, C.C. Kew publishing, 2011

Let's explore this plant today!

https://flic.kr/p/ngi3Cx

This one is called Aloe schelpei. It is a succulent plant, which means it stores water in its leaves or roots. Its home is Ethiopia, a country in Africa, where it grows on slopes of mountains at 2100 + meter. (That is high!)

https://flic.kr/p/nxMM7z

The leaves are blueish green, see, and look at the nice reddish color on the leaves margins, but be careful, there is also teeth, they help protect the plant.

https://flic.kr/p/ngiezd

Look at all the flowers! Wow, you know they have a name for all those flowers together, it is called a raceme, and as each flower becomes older they get yellow edges. Let me show you!

https://flic.kr/p/ejKHJ1

We will visit more of dad's Aloe plants soon, and then you can see all the different types. Let's go in, then I will show you where Ethiopia is, this plant is far away from its home, here in our garden.