Garden Designers & Landscape Gardeners
Garden Buildings in South & East England

Aloe striatula.
Left - growing here in London in the Carribean Home From Home , this is surely this plant's ideal position - fully south facing with sharp drainage from being on a raised bank behind a wall of rockery stone. These clumps have been growing here for 7 or 8 years and have hardly ever had any damage from cold weather. We think that short spells of -8c are no problem for this plant.
Right - These clumps produce in excess of 100 flower spikes every year, and one year came close to 200. We have had to cut back some of the clumps which have simply taken over the rock bank. When we do this we take some of the pruned heads of foliage and simply stick them in the ground. They seem to root very easily like this and flower the next season.

Left - the pure yellow flowered form of Aloe striatula. This seems to be a distinct plant in that is is much hardier, and more vigorous and tightly compact in its growth habit than the other flower colours. This is the clump that we have to cut back most frequently.
Centre - the midway hybrid which is a little less vigorous and only lightly flushed with orange.
Right - the orange form is much slower growing than the pure yellow. It forms a much more open leggy clump and fewer heads of foliage and hence flowers. We suspect it is less hardy too. We did find a red form but this seems to be even less hardy.