The remarkably warm weather so far this winter has allowed several species to flower at VBG that don’t usually get warm enough to fully open.
Aloe arborescens, the irritatingly named Octopus Plant (uurgh!) usually gets hit by the cold before now and its flower spikes go brown, bent over and limp. They are a very pleasant burned orange colour that jumps out against the Eucalyptus gunnii screen by Signal Point House.
We have 21 species of Aloe out of doors at the garden, they have proved to be a lot tougher than we thought. With this in mind we’ve aquired seed of scores more to experiment with in the coming years.