Aloe Species, Bitter Aloe, Cape Aloe, Red Aloe

Zone 9b Coastal Otago NZ

This aloe and it's confusingly numerous hybrids (I think I have about three different forms thoug...Read Moreh theyre still quite young and it's hard to tell) are great for the novice aloe enthusiast because they look impressive from an early age and Ive found them to be very forgiving. You can forget about them for a half a year and they'll sit in the corner gasping for water but not dying on you and will revive and replump with a gratifying generosity of spirit.
We get only light frosts usually, with the odd hard one every couple of years and these guys have never sustained damage in my maritime 9-ish zone; I grow both in pots and in the ground and both situations have proven hardy. That said, I wouldn't like to freeze the poor thing solid so if you get snow that stays on the ground and goes icy, keep yours in a pot for winter sheltering.
Despite it's undemanding nature I dont find A Ferox to be particularly fast growing down here for some peculiar reason; my numerous other aloes all seem to be romping away but these guys are slow and steady. Perhaps it's because their leaves are quite massive from an early age and bulk is attained before height, if that makes sense. Mine are still a trio of spiny no-neck monsters, dammit.
Like most aloes the ferox is a shallow rooted beast and that combined with immense top-heaviness can cause it to topple in a windy spot so placement needs to be considered. I weight the bases of my larger aloes with big rocks, especially after transplanting, and it seems to help. You dont want one of these falling on you, your dog or your other plants.
If youre a bit of a cactus-killer but love a dramatic plant, this is the aloe for you because of its stoopid-proofness. Just remember it gets pretty hefty. For some reason A Ferox reminds me of the giant gingerbreadman Mungo in Shrek Two. I just thought Id put that out there :-)

This is one of the more commonly sold tree aloes and makes an impressive landscape specimen. Like Aloe marlothii, this is a monster of an...Read More aloe- gets huge, fat-leaved, top-heavy heads with profuse, huge red orange flower stalks. It is a beautiful plant. The leaves are a bluish-green and tend to be a bit spikey (not as bad as Aloe marlothii which looks very similar otherwise). These two aloe seems to hybridize easily and there are a lot of mixes on the market. A seedling has intensely spiny leaves, but most of these spines eventually disappear as the plant matures. It is a fast grower and a seedling will produce fertile seed in only 4-5 years here in So Cal.

This is a highly variable species with a variety of flower and plant shapes. It also hybridizes freely and easiy with whatever is blooming around it. Tall, mature plants can be a bit difficult to tell from Aloe excelsa, though the latter's flowers are supposed to be a bit less straight up and down than A ferox flowers.

The largest form of this aloe, from KwaZulu land, has been listed separately for a long time and called Aloe candelabrum... however, it has been recently included in this species. This plant has enormous red- orange flowers and is often a solitary grower (but not always).
THis is one of the most popular medicinal aloes, and in S Africa they cut off a lot of the leaves (max supposedly 8, so plant can recover) for a product called Cape Aloes, used as a purgative or 'stomach purifier'.

Someone told me the 'candellabra' form of Aloe ferox has white lips at the ends of the individual flowers