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Aloe Vera Plant Growing & Usage Tips
Buying Tips
- This plant usually grows slowly inside a house–purchase a large, more mature plant if possible. If a young plant is your only option, you can still use it for first aid treatments but know it will take a few years to get large.
- Young aloe plants are potent enough to use for first aid treatments, but the more mature plant offers a stronger potency, strength does increase with age.
Growing Tips
- Aloe Vera can be planted indoors or outdoors, but will turn brown in harsh sunlight so plant in indirect light.
- Will freeze, make sure to protect it during frost dangers. Not suitable for wintering over in cold weather zones.
- Will grow faster outside than inside, but definitely makes a good indoor plant.
- Use well-drained sandy potting soil, a good quality commercial potting mix with extra perlite, granite grit, or coarse sand are added is recommended. Cacti and succulent mixes may also be used. Source: Wikipedia: Aloe Vera.
Watering
- Aloe Vera is a succulent, don’t overwater.
- Allow the soil to become fairly dry before watering. Lightly water during winter months since the drying out will be slower.
- If planting in a pot, make sure there is a drainage hole so the water can drain easily.
Repotting
- When the plant is rootbound it will be top heavy and will send out more new shoots or pups, repot.
- Remove new shoots when they are 3 to 4 inches high and replant in their own pots. If you don’t, they will suck life from the mother plant. Signs of this happening: The mother plant will get bright green and spread its leaves horizontally rather than vertically.
- Water the pups well when repotting then don’t water again for about 3 weeks, forcing the new roots to get strong and seek water. They may turn grey or brown initially, this is normal. These make great gifts so give freely!
Symptoms Of Poor Plant Care
- Leaves lie flat instead of upright: usually because of insufficient light.
- Leaves are thin and curled: plant is not being watered enough, it’s using up its own liquid.
- Leaves are brown: too much direct sunlight.
- Very slow growth: High alkaline soil or water; too damp for too long; not enough light; too much fertilizer.
Removing Leaves
- Harvest leaves as you need, the plant wound is quickly sealed and healed. The leaf will not grow back, choose those closest to the ground as they are the most mature and most potent.
Using Aloe Vera For First Aid Treatments
For benefits and home remedies using Aloe Vera in first aid, see How To Heal With Aloe Vera Plants: Tips Guide.
How To Cut A Leaf
- Remove the leaf from the plant with a sharp knife.
- Trim the thorny edges from the severed leaf, then slice the leaf across its width. The inner transparent, gooey gel is ready to be applied directly to the afflicted area. Use generously, it will be absorbed by the skin within several minutes.
- After the gel from the first layer of ruptured cells has run dry, scratch the surface with a clean knife to rupture more cells, releasing more juice. This can be continued until there is nothing but green skin left.
How Long Will A Leaf Last
- Wrap partially used leaves in foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate, it will last for days.
Consuming The Plant Directly
- The colorless pulp is tasteless, but first rinse off the bitter yellow sap. Peel the green skin from the pulp, then rinse off the sap with cool water.
Source – More complete notes & tips can be found in the booklet:
The Ancient Egyptian Medicine Plant Aloe Vera Hand Book
Author: Max B. Skousen
Aloe Vera Research Institute (1982)
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This was very helpful and interesting. I just moved to the desert a while back and my garden beds have several large Aloe plants. Enjoyed this column.
I found that if you put potatoes into the soil with the plants they grow much stronger,(note: the potatoes will sprout and grow, so just nip the sprouts off at ground level or you can even use the water from boiling potatoes, but do not use salted water and cool the water to room temperature.
Our Aloe plant tipped over and one side of the mother plan broke off. There are about 4 shoots connected to a white woody stem. Is there any way to make this sprout roots and grow?
Thanks!
Ed
Ed, Just stick that sprout in a pot and it’ll grow. In fact, if you just stick a cut-off stem in dirt, it’ll grow. This plant is amazing!
Thanks so much for this article. I just received an Aloe plant as a gift and did everything I shouldn’t have (overwatering, direct sunlight, cold). I feel much better about letting it be since it’s winter here in Ohio.
Can someone tell me what do you do if you have an enormous number of large “pups” (approx. 10-12) that are continuously growing horizontally? I bought the aloe vera 3 yrs. ago. I have replanted 1x)this plant & a few of it’s “pups” to a much larger pot, however they are now growing at a rapid speed & are about to burst out this large pot. I really don’t want to re-pot 10-12 new plants.
I am not sure why you don’t want to repot a fair number of pups from your mother plant, but if you do it will be normally easy to find homes for the young sprouts. Have you tried advertising on a “Free-cycle” group in your town or city? I get “free” stuff and give away stuff through our “Free-cycle” group all the time. Just tell the folks to bring their own pot with cactus type soil for as many pups as they want. You may meet a lot of folks with your same interestes.
I stumbled on this article looking for the botanical differences between soap aloe (saponaria) and aloe vera. Since I have a dozen aloes of one kind or another in my landscape, I would like to suggest some of this advice is not quite accurate. Aloe vera grows outside in the landscape in Tucson AZ. It does not need indirect light. It does great in blistering full day sun. We have 180+ days of 100 F or greater and 10-12″ of rain. While it does better with supplemental watering, it will sustain itself without it. Too much water is its nemesis. It will take a frost and even a hard freeze down to 20-22. Not sustained, but we will get several consecutive nights below 32 and it does fine. It may brown and curl at the tip, but that is about all. If And given lots of sun and regular watering, it grows like a weed.
My aloe vera was growing beautifully, and a few weeks ago it started looking wilted and turning slightly brown. The last couple of times I’ve watered it, I’ve seen some baby frogs run out of the plant. Are the frogs damaging my aloe vera by living in the pot?
my aloe plant was doing average inside then i had this brillant idea to put it outside for a while and it rained a few days too… now my plant has really dark purple leaves that are no longer plump and about four or five green leaves and only like two of the green leaves are healthy b/c they’re new. i dont know wat to do should i take the purple leaves off or will they still live or is my plant in general basically dead? help…!
please and thank you!
my aloe vera has grown so tall (she is about ten years old) that she is listing go one side, what do I do, she is a member of our plant family
I just heard that an aloe plant is good inside to help the air–in other words to be more green
I have harvested the juice from several leaves since they froze outside and thawed. Can it be kept unrefrigerated in a plastic container? Or must it be refrigerated? An how long will it last if either are done? I make my own lotion – can it be added to that?
Our aloe plants were left out during a recent freeze and all the plants wilted terribly. Are they done for or can they be revived?
I want to plant some more alo plants out of the one in the yard. Do I first put it in water or does it go in cactis soil, the leaf that is.
Barbie the little “pups” should have roots on them already so you just plant those directly in the soil (water well once you plant them).
I’ve used this plant for years, heard more about it today,rekindeled my interest .I hear aloe juice is now in some stores..must look for it…