Question
Hi Greg - me again :-)

Your response was so wonderful and helpful yesterday and I'd just like the opportunity to ask you another thing.

From the information you gave, I felt that the best thing might be to put all the plants together in a sort of long trough, so that they could creep along the ground and also support each other.

Then later in the everning, I read that if you don't take away the baby aloes from the mother, they eventually start to suck the life force from this plant and she will start to grow sideways, rather than upwards - so now I;m really confused!

In your opinion, would it be better to have the aloes in individual pots or to have them all together, providing physical support for one another? Do you know how they grow in nature?

Many thanks again for your inspirational reply yesterday

Rachelle

Answer
Hi again Rachelle,

Well I've had Aloes for the better part of 20 years and I have yet to see an Aloe Vera stand upright more than 6 or 8 inches (of stem) without support (even with all of the pups nipped off).

In nature, they grow in large mats on the ground. Go to this link, it's a fairly good picture, http://www.herbs.org/Aloe_vera-2.jpg Here is a good picture of a juvenile Aloe Dichotoma, http://members.tripod.co.jp/hanaya24/ys8.jpg

If you like the upright look, I would suggest Aloe Dichotoma. Otherwise, the only way to get Aloe Vera to stand up, will be to use a stake. If you grow them in a single long pot, it may help. But they will still get top heavy and fall over at some point. Good luck!

Sincerely,

Greg