Garden Aloes

spring blooming Aloes with white flowers (2)

Are you looking to add some white color to your waterwise garden in the spring? Here's a handy list of 2 Aloes that are good candidates.

Aloe speciosa

In mid-winter to early spring appear the short, 1 foot (30 cm) long, cone-like inflorescences that rise and branch close to the crown of the rosette. The inflorescence is solitary (unbranched), but one rosette can produce up to four inflorescences. The cylindrical raceme is about 500 mm long, densely packed with flowers. The buds are a deep red when young and mature to green with white stripes. When the flowers open, the dark brownish-orange stamens and style protrude conspicuously from the tips of the flowers. As they open in succession from the bottom to the top, the entire bloom is tri-colored. The peduncle is short, about 120 mm long, and covered at the base by papery bracts. read more

Aloe suzannae

Flowering is a rare event for Aloe suzannae with only maturing plants flowering (at least 20 to 30 years old), and that is infrequent (every 3-15 years). Blooming season is in late winter or early spring. The massive inflorescence which lasts for over a month is unbranched, and densely covered with ivory colored flowers that have yellow stamens. The campanulate shaped flowers are completely covering in length a stout tight spike to 5 feet tall rising above the foliage. It is exceptional in its genus in having nocturnal fragrant flowers, presumably pollinated by nocturnal animals such as bats and small lemurs. It has been observed in the wild with flowers open during the day. Kelly Griffin wrote about this plant in Madagascar, where he got to see a large number of very large plants growing, that this plant flowers both day and night, and pointed out that often repeated nocturnal flowering rule is a long-standing misconception. This plant is at least an unreliable flowerer. It can be years between flowering events for each plant. Some never seem to flower. Fortunately, a number of cultivated plants are now well established and have reached flowering size. read more

Aloes organized by flower color