Aloe Vera, can a broken piece be rooted?

Discussion in 'Houseplants' started by Edlou8181, May 6, 2014.

  1. Edlou8181

    Edlou8181 Seedling

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    Sorry if my spelling is wrong.
    I need a little help.
    I broke a leaf,stem,branch off the adult plant and I'm trying to get it ti get roots so I can restart it again.
    I put the branch in soil to no luck,now I have it in water and hope that will work.
    I need some ideas.
    Sleep warm as its my bed time
    ed
     
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  3. carolyn

    carolyn Strong Ash

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    Hey Ed, You need to divide from the roots to make a new plant of the aloe vera. A leaf cutting just wont work on this plant. Put the leaf in a plastic bag and put it in the fridge. Keep it as long as it doesn't rot and use it for burns, scrapes, rashes etc., on your skin.
     
  4. waretrop

    waretrop Strong Ash Plants Contributor

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    Yes, If you have a stem and a node with a leaf on it you should try to put it in soil and water it. You won't be out anything if it doesn't work.
     
  5. toni

    toni Mistress of Garden Junque Staff Member Moderator Plants Contributor

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    Aloe vera plants do not have stems and leave nodes. They typically can only be multiplied by taking the pups aka dividing the roots and repotting them.
     



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  6. waretrop

    waretrop Strong Ash Plants Contributor

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    http://voices.yahoo.com/how-propagate-a ... 89952.html

    http://www.aloeplant.info/how-to-propag ... era-plant/

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXnrTfFSZbI

    http://www.wikihow.com/Grow-an-Aloe-Pla ... -Aloe-Leaf

    Ed, Since we talked privately I realized that you should let it dry out and scab over for a week. Why don't you post a picture so we can see the condition of what you have? As I have already told you, don't give up so easily.
     
  7. carolyn

    carolyn Strong Ash

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    I broke one of mine off in the greenhouse over the winter. I thought it wouldn't do anything, honestly. It had a tiny section of a root/stem with one node on it I stuck it in the pot that had a hibiscus in it and it did root right into the soil, so now I have an aloe in the pot with the hibiscus.

    Barb, I have never seen to try taking a leaf cutting and propagate it. I think I will give that a try just to say I did it, if it works.
     
  8. waretrop

    waretrop Strong Ash Plants Contributor

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    I love propagating plants. I do amazing things and even surprise myself sometimes but I have not grown seeds very well. I did a few in the past like my holly hocks and have just grown some garden veggie seeds for Spring. I guess everyone has their own expertise. I also have had NO LUCK making plants from cut leaves like Begonias but I will very soon. I will conquer that.

    :-D

    So Ed, I think you should take that little thing out of the glass of water. That won't solve your problem. It's probably the hardest thing to do but let it sit in air for at least like 4 days if you can. then plant it again in moist soil.

    Whatever you do, don't just give up when you hear someone say you can't do it. OK? You need to say encouraged.
     
  9. toni

    toni Mistress of Garden Junque Staff Member Moderator Plants Contributor

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    By mentioning stems and leaf nodes that sounded like rooting an ivy not an Aloe. Yes, you can root the leaf in other ways but even when I lived in south Florida where a wooden toothpick stuck in the ground will eventually root, putting an Aloe leaf in a pot of soil or water ended up with a dead leaf.
     
  10. bunkie

    bunkie Young Pine

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    At our farmers market, a customer gave me a small chunk of cactus she grew. I was told to put it in damp sand for awhile and it would root/grow. I did so and it took off very fast and then I repotted it in soil. Still have it to this day and it's blooming for the first time this year...it's huge!
     
  11. carolyn

    carolyn Strong Ash

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    Really, Toni, A toothpick would root? I have never heard of that.
     
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  12. Botany_lover8

    Botany_lover8 New Seed

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    Chloe the aloe Vera plant

    Hey Ed, I tried growing an aloe Vera plant too, I happen to be visiting my grandmother at a nursing home and saw they had an aloe Vera plant, I causally ripped a leaf off making sure there was still a little bit of root attached to the leaf, I planted it in a container and it is currently growing new leaves
     
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  13. Sherry8

    Sherry8 I Love Birds!

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    I have no luck with an Aloe Vera plant...I keep killing them . I have gone through at least 3 plants since last fall....good luck working with it ed, I hope you have a greener thumb than I have. Let us know how things are going or if you get a new plant...
     
  14. carolyn

    carolyn Strong Ash

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    I did try the leaf on its side method...to no avail. It didn't work this time, nor do I think it will work, but I will try it again. I did see that the entire center broke out of one stalk and there are a bunch of little leaves coming from the main stem.
     
  15. purpleinopp

    purpleinopp Young Pine Plants Contributor

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    Plants that don't wilt do best if cuttings callous before being put in pots. Otherwise, they are likely to rot.
     
  16. MountainGuardian

    MountainGuardian New Seed

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    I bought a little six inch aloe for the wife as an anniversary present about ten years ago, she had been bugging me to get her one for about three years. It was cute little thing a little 4 inch ceramic pot, I was picking up food at Safeway and they had some plants at the front of the store and I thought hey $6 bucks and what she wants to boot.


    I repotted the day after I gave it to her and put it in a six inch pot and hung it in a window. I just kept repotting it in ever bigger pots and it grew and grew and grew. When we moved out onto our first farm it was getting fairly big and I built a 2ft by 1 foot wooden box for it and set it in a window. It grew so big that it had to lay over sideways to stay in the window light. I repotted it in a bigger planter and put it in a bigger window and continued in the same way, laying on it's side and growing bigger and bigger.

    Pretty soon it started sprouting babies along the stalk that was laying on the soil behind the arms. After about 2 years of that it was producing around 100 baby aloes a year. It now has about 2 feet of sideways stalk at or just under soil level and is about 3 feet tall beyond that. It produces around 100 babies a year still and has been flowering for the past two years now. We have two babies about the same size that came from this plant that are now flowering as well, but they produce very few babies, but they are completely vertical still with no stalk laying across the soil.

    As for sprouting a plant from an arm, that is not possible. You can cut a portion of root off and grow a plant from that. Or as we do it, you can get the plant to sprout babies off the roots on it's own. I let our babies grow to about a foot tall or so before I separate them from the mother aloe. I dig down in the soil carefully and get as much root as I can when I remove the baby aloes and transplant them into their own pots.

    If you want to stimulate baby aloe growth, repot the plant in a much bigger container and disturb the roots. The root disturbance combined with more area and loads of water for a few weeks seems to stimulate baby aloe sprouting.

    If you want an aloe that will sprout a lot of babies, try building a long planter box, put the aloe in one end of it and then put that end away from the light so that it grows across the box to get to light. You will need a box at least a couple feet long to do this. As arms lay on the soil for a while they often start to wither, just cut them off close to the trunk and slowly you get a long trunk laying on the soil, you should soon start getting baby aloes sprouting along it.

    Before long you can wind up with an overabundance of aloes such as we have.... We have been giving them away for years, but most everyone we know already has one from us. It is hard to find anyone who wants one anymore, so we have around 40 to 50 aloe plants in the house at the moment.

    I looked up this aloe a few years ago, it is a bitter tree aloe from South Africa. They can grow to about 13 feet tall in the wild. I like this type because they seem rather bullet proof as far as care goes, fairly tolerant of cold, ours has been exposed to freezing temps in the house on a few occasions, the bitterness keeps most animals, and it would appear most all insects from chewing on them.
     

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