Remember my trip to Oklahoma City back at the end of January? Me either. That might as well have been in another century.
I bring it up again because I remember remarking when I was showing pictures of the Land Run Centennial Park that I hadn’t seen a lot of plants (well, yes, it was January) but I could identify an aloe that I had at home that blooms for me in a container.
And here’s my blooming aloe. Now I can no more identify it (by variety or species) here than I can in Oklahoma. My recollection is that it came in a container of mixed succulents–and not necessarily the one I currently have it in.
But clearly it’s happy at my house. That’s all that matters to me.
It looks like a very shaded Aloe arborescens. They get severely etiolated as houseplants, but can not survive where winter are too cool for them. They are popular down near the beach, where the grow into big mounds that bloom profusely with those bright orange spikes. Some have narrower leaves with bigger teeth. Like many aloes, they are difficult to identify online, just because everyone can post anything with the wrong name, and they very often do. Aloe vera is the most common example. (No, not all species of Aloe are Aloe vera.) Was this aloe also groing in Oklahoma City?
Yes, it grows outside there and is hardy and, if I am not mistaken the flowers are much more on the redder side of orange than mine (because of course anything flowering indoors in Connecticut in a pot is only going to be a very poor imitation of the real thing! )
I am just thrilled that the thing blooms for me at all.
Karla