The Aloe is dead. Long live the Aloe.
/Preface: I love plants. I love the look of a lot of houseplants and a big lush English style garden. But the outside makes me itchy and has bugs and is hot, and I am a slacker when it comes to plant maintenance. Because, once again, dear readers, it all boils down to: I am lazy.
the collection. The big pot with the jade in it used to be the aloe plant. The other two are newbies that have yet to feel the pain of my neglect. And oh man does that table top need a helping hand. Oof.
And yet.
In 1997 or 1998 after college (shut up I'm old), I got an aloe plant. Probably from some random garden center or Home Despot or someplace. And by some miracle, I have kept this sucker, alive, and for a time, thriving. By sheer luck. And neglect.
The aloe in better health, but a poorer picture. And piles and piles of crap around it.
At it peak, the aloe was massive, too heavy to lift by myself, and poking the faces of the cats and kids on the daily. The cats loved it. Kids, not so much.
And it was getting so big it was starting to topple over. It shared the massive pot with a jade plant that was rapidly taking over. Just look how droopy that poor thing is. The aloe had started send out little babies to make their way in the world. The time had come.
I yanked the big sucker out of its pot. I pulled the babies too, leaving the jade to take over the giant pot and be the rambling crazy sprawl it so wants to be. I have no qualms about chopping back a jade plant if it starts sprawling the wrong way. Those things are impossible to kill and will propagate at the drop of a hat, or leaf, as it were.
In the past, I'd had success with the aloe just yanking off the saddest of leaves and repotting the rest. But this time, it was just too far gone for a mild renovation. It had lived a nice long life and I didn't think it was going to settle nicely into a new pot, so out in the tub trug it went.
the aloe is dead. Long live the Aloe.
And its baby took its rightful place as the new aloe for me to neglect and possibly kill. Last year I threw a few pots on the potters wheel with the idea toward putting some succlents in them. I even thought ahead (a rarity) and added drainage holes while trimming them before firing them. However, I killed the succulents within two weeks, so the pot had just been laying empty, waiting for it's one true love: baby aloe. Top with some pebbles so the toddler doesn't decide to go digging in the dirt, et voilà.
long live the Aloe! (And the jade plant behind it)
