PlantFiles: Aloe
Aloe ellenbeckii

Nice little Aloe that handles the desert heat fine and in the ground seems to do ok with basic frosts. The flowers are a bit unreliable and the rabbits love to eat it.

I water this about once a week in well-drained 50% DG/50% pumice organic mix during spring and summer. Once a week during Fall and Winter if it hasn't rained in the last week. Seems to do fine with this schedule. I will hold back watering if it shows no new growth signals.

bob
:>)

low growing suckering aloe with short, stiff, thin spotted leaves with tiny teeth along the margins. Leaves tend to grow straight up in the air. I found this a pretty easy aloe to grow in the garden, southern CAlifornia, but somewhat slow. It also is easy to overwater and cause to rot (found out this several times). Eventually grows into a large, ground-cover-like colony.

Information about this plant states it's a summer to fall bloomer, but here in So Cal it seems to bloom only in the winter

How to tell this plant from Aloe amudatensis is unknown to me... similar flowers, similar leaves, similar blooming habits... hmmm. the latter is from Uganda, while this is from Somalia.

Though it is a bit wimpy in cold, my plants all survived the Jan 07 Los Angeles freeze of 27F with minor leaf tip damage- same freeze that melted about 5 other species completely and damaged hundreds of others. Pretty sure this is a zone 10a plant.