Video Of My Blooming Tree Aloes

[epiphyte78]

Most of my tree Aloes are blooming now so thought I'd share a video on Youtube. In the past, there were glitches when I've linked directly to Youtube so I'll link to my blog entry instead... Tree Aloes Blooming In Southern California.

[Helene]

OMG- is that your backyard? Beautiful- wow- that Hercules are amazing💓
And the marlothii is huge- lol, in my country you find aloe in small 3" pots😜 I didnt even know they could bloom… *blushing*

And you dont sound awkward, you sound peaceful and was easy to hear what you say, and I dont even speak english.

Beautiful☺️ I opened your blog in my webview, so I can easily find it again.

Thanks for sharing😊

Right now there is 28F/ -2C at my place… well, soon spring😎
In the summer we might get 75-80F / 23-28C, sometimes a bit more. Usually windy aswell.

I really really like the tropical plants, and palmtrees, and aloes- cause we dont have that in my country.

[estación seca]

It's thought they evolved to bloom in the winter because then there is less competition for the attention of pollinators.

A. arborescens grows as a shrub, not a tree. The multiple rosettes support each other. Continually removing offsets leads to a floppy bare stem with a rosette at the end. To see what it can look like, see the enormous old specimens flanking the staircase at the entrance to the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park, or the ones planted along the bluffs in Laguna Beach and Corona del Mar.

Aloe dichotoma, and its close relatives A. pillansii and A. ramosissima, are summer-dormant winter-growers, from a climate much like inland LA but with more fog. Water and fertilize them during the winter and they'll grow a lot faster.

"Vao" in Madagascar means "aloe" and "be" (pronounced "bay") means 'big." Thus, "vaombe" = "big aloe", though A. vaotsanda is bigger. The other Madagascar tree aloes should do well in your garden: capitata variety cipollinicola, divaricata, helenae, suzannae and vaotsanda. You'll have to do some searching. The Huntington sells divaricata and suzannae sometimes at plant sales. Divaricata is often available from succulent nurseries. It and vaombe are mostly hardy in Phoenix frosts. I will try to post a photo of my vaombe in flower.

The genus Aloe has recently been split into a number of old and new genera. Whether this will be accepted remains to be seen.

[No-Pro-mwa]

Very pretty. I use to have what ever the ones they sell around here in the house and mine would bloom. I have no idea what kind it was. I need to get another one so I can use it again.

[wintergirl]

Wonderful bunch of aloes! I never knew there were so many. Thanks for sharing.

[epiphyte78]

Helene, glad you enjoyed it! It's technically my front yard. My back yard is a little less drought tolerant looking. :/ Yeah... your country is toooooo cold. But... you have Royksopp!

estación seca, thanks for the info! I'm not sure about that winter-blooming theory though. I can see where it might be beneficial to bloom when there's less competition for pollinators. But I'm not sure why this would apply to only Aloes. Can you guess what would happen if hummingbirds were introduced to Africa? Of course I'm not suggesting it!!! But I am curious what the consequences would.

I know what you mean about the A. arborescens. All the ones that I've seen here in Southern California look like overgrown bushes. But check out this wild A. arborescens. It looks a lot more "tree-like" than ours do! And it would be would be excellent for attaching orchids to! In fact, when I zoom in on that Aloe... I swear it looks like there's an orchid growing on it.

One theory I heard a while back is that most of our Aloe arborescens here are grown from cuttings... and cuttings are a lot more likely to have basal offshoots. So I tested this theory out when I grew some of the seeds from my variegated arborescens. The theory was quickly busted though because the seedlings quickly started producing basal offshoots. It seems like there are a few different varieties of arborescens.... and, at least as far as hosting orchids is concerned.... we ended up with the wrong variety!

Do you have a lot of tree Aloes? If so, have you attached orchids to any of them yet? Unfortunately, there really aren't too many Aloes that are perfectly suited to host orchids. Most of the tree Aloes only have a single trunk/branch... which means less surface area for attaching orchids to. Aloe bainsaii has lots of branches... but they are usually out of reach. Aloe dichotama has lots of branches but it's sooooooo slooooow growing. Same with ramosissima. The wild arborescens is nearly perfect for a garden.... but might be a bit too big for a pot.

With this in mind... a year or two ago I tried to pollinate my Aloe tenuior with pollen from my different tree Aloes. Aloe tenuior has several bare stems... but they are too slender for most orchids. So I was hoping to at least double the size of the stem. A few pods developed and maybe a couple dozen seedlings germinated. Right now there are four left. I swear the two largest ones look like hybrids rather than selfings.... but it might be wishful thinking on my part because recently I've been giving them more fertilizer and water. The teeth on the offspring are larger than on the tenuior... and I'm not sure if that can be explained by a disparity in TLC. Maybe it can though... so I'm trying not to get my hopes up. The suspense is killing me though!

[estación seca]

Most Aloes are easy to hybridize. Crossing one of the tree aloes (moved into Aloidendron) with some of the others doesn't work well. And A. plicatilis (now Kumara plicitilis) is not likely to cross with anything else, though there have been a few stray crosses made with it in the past. They combine the worst features of both parents.

Ramosissima is a very low tree. You generally can't see the trunk, so any orchids hiding there would really be hiding. It and dichotoma are not slow growers when they're happy.

[epiphyte78]

That sucks that plicatilis isn't a fan of being crossed! Mine is just starting to spike. I'll probably try and cross pollinate it anyways on the off chance I manage to get lucky. A quick google search reveals this possible plicatilis cross with speciosa. That would be pretty good for attaching some smaller epiphytes to. And I do have speciosa in bloom right now.

Well... the orchids would be attached to ramosissima's branches rather than to its trunk. And I've heard too many stories of ramosissima and dichotoma rotting so I try and err on the side of less water... which probably means slower growing. Better dehydrated than rotted!

[estación seca]

Dichotoma and ramosissima rot with summer water when it's hot. They won't rot during their winter growing season unless frozen. They can be kept wetter than most people would ever dare as long as it's cool weather.

I water my dichotomas lightly once every 2-3 weeks in the summer, during a cooler evening, and I keep them moist to boggy all winter. They grow a few inches / 10cm per year until they're about a foot / 30cm tall and then they take off. My problem is we get a heavy frost every 10 years or so.

[u bada]

Wow, thanks for sharing the video, really beautiful garden!

I do landscape design here and I love to Aloe's whenever a client is open to them. i have a kinda extensive property I've been personally developing/ maintaining out in your area and we lost new growths on a bainsii (really it's barbarae) to the one cold spell we had... yours look untouched! Not sure if it'll come back but the trunk looks firm and green... I had one infested with mealies years ago at another house and had to cut the single lead off and it never came back... sniff.

The hybridizing programs on aloes are amazing and growers really bank on the amazing traits they get out of the ease of how they cross pollinate, ie leaf color and flowers. David Verity being of the finest- red leaf margins on dark green leaves and bright pink to red to coral with yellow flowers... rooikappie is a another great one that blooms almost year round... but I have an affection for the mini hybrids, any of the doran wright hybrids for instance.

Not sure i would use tree aloes for mounting as i believe trunks/branches that are deep grooved, rough and last the longest are best, and aloes mostly smooth trunks change a bit quickly and can rot with water on them too much (personal experience for sure, with the inefficient spray irrigation systems out there)

last note, i can vouch for many aloes in trade being winter growers and bloomers. i specialize in california natives in our landscapes here and they go summer dormant so you can imagine my suprise years ago when I noticed the aloes looking like #%& in the summer when I'm trying to make the summer state of gardens look decent with what are suppose to be consistent all year growers like many succulents in trade...