The Aloe ferox is an original plant of South Africa. It normally has a simple stem, of up to 5 meters of height with a rosette of 60 leaves of more than 1.20 ms of length. It is an Aloe of great size. It displays variable spines on his leaves that are indented with a more or less reddish coloration of their thorns.

It blooms during the winter, producing very dense graft inflorescences of flowers of about 3-4 cm, reddish color orange, and that can be similar clusters of bananas when the flowers are very mature and return to more or less yellow colors.

In order to obtain good results, this class of Aloe must grown on the ground due to its extensive rooting system. In flowerpot, even of a big size, the plant will tend to slow down their growth. It has average nutritional necessities, reason why it is possible to fertilize the plant during the months of activity.

 It is necessary to choose carefully the site if we plant them on the ground. With 4 years we can have a rosette of 1.20 m of diameter. From 5º year the plant begins to develop its stem and with about 10 years, 1 m of height of the stem, the diameter of the rosette can arrive at 1.60 m.

The Aloe ferox is very rustic. It likes the water in abundance during the periods of growth. Nevertheless, we would have to totally leave it in dry during the months of winter. This way we will obtain a magnificent flowering, we will enjoy the reddish colorations that are adopting the leaves of our plant, and, most important, our plant will be able to hold without great problems the low temperatures and frosts that take place.

In our garden we have them located to the foot of a gigantic Yucca elephantipens, forgotten most of the time, competing by the water and challenging to the extended rooting system of the Yucca. 

Only when the winter arrives the Aloe ferox revives of its lethargy and it offers splendid flowerings as to remember to us that they stay there, calm, under the Yucca…

Dr. Risco