I have a very old Aloe that has been in the same pot for at least 5-6 years. She has been looking like she was going to burst from the pot for a while, her root system was getting skinny and she was really hanging over the side. HOWEVER, she was very green. Dark green longer fronds and light green new growth.
Well, not wanting her to break her roots and fall out of the pot I repotted her. Into a larger pot. I used Miracle Grow Cactus and now she looks like thisthisthis,and this. What is that yellowing in the root systems? I’m not sure if that’s even yellowing or something else.
We have a big momma-aloe that has been turning into a palm-tree over the years (and giving us lots of baby-aloes that we chop off and give to people) and the lower leaves have long ago dried up and fallen off, leaving a yellow trunk. This pic is from about 6 or 8 months ago, with bonus kitten and a slight mess: http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h207/mnems/DSCN1889.jpg
I know next to nothing about keeping plants alive (you should see the one I got only a month ago).
The trick to keeping our aloes (and two orchids) going seems to be to ignore them entirely for months on end, and then suddenly remember to water them. Our orchids bloom nearly yearly and our aloes stay green. A few of our “babies” from the freaky palm tree aloe are beginning to get that same look to them.
I think too much water can cause the roots to die… I think it’s better to let them get dry than to give too much water. I also think aloes do better in indirect sunlight, so if yours is right in the sun, that might be causing problems.
I’ll now let other people with actual gardening knowledge tell you useful information
What sort of pot was it in before your repotted?
If it was terracotta you probably lost water due to leeching through the terracotta and your new plastic pot will retain a lot more water.
Is the new pot a “self watering” one?
It may be that the soil is too wet based on the water store at the bottom of the pot.
Stick your finger in the mix. If you get mix stuck to your finger it’s probably too wet. Let it dry out. When the leaves of the aloe start to get “less plump” it’s time water again.
All things point to being too wet or stress.
How long ago did you do the repotting?
Weeks? Root rot.
Days? Stress.
Hours? Bad lighting
Just a couple days ago we repotted. Yes the new pot is a self watering one.
I have not been able to find proper cactus soil here in CT. When I lived in AZ we had the good cactus soil i.e. sandy, grainy, bits of organic material. Here the Cactus soil is peat based, I have no idea why.
You don’t necessarily have to go with the pre-made mixes. A good homebrew cactus mix is 2 parts course builder’s sand, 2 parts regular potting mix, 1/2 part leaf mold or peat moss, 1/2 part bonemeal.
I chronically over-water plants, so my husband takes care of them. However, I do remember that we took all the inserts out of all our “self-watering” pots because they were extra deadly. I think it’s just too much water. YMMV, of course.
That looks like you had the plant indoors and put it outside. I believe you exposed them to to much UV without a gradual acclimation to solar radiation. The damage is done so just let them grow new leaves. The old ones will die off over time, or survive. They look bad but surprisingly many of those leaves will survive. In really intense light I’ve seen the leaves all go that color even when the plant has time to acclimate. Aloe will quickly rot if they go bad, and those leaves don’t seem to be rotting. If left alone to grow in a few months you’ll be happy with the recovery.
That looks distinctly like over watering and nothing like too much sun.
I’m a bit new to plant’s but I will give you the experience I am drawing from. I have a fuschia that was recently forced to weather the winter indoors. Strangly, I did this in Eugene Orgeon, and the same plant chose to die back. This time however, it did something I thought was amazing. In the low light conditions, it decided to grow like mad to reach the light. The leaves on this new growth were huge. The leaves were clearly adjusting to absorb as much light as possible. Now, summer has come and this plant has been placed outside. The big leaves are turning redish and dying. This is consistent with my experience of plants getting too much light. The leaves turn reddish then die. Of course, I’ve never seen a cactus get too much light, so I don’t know how they behave.
Another plant I have wintered in the same area as the fuschia. I tended to water everything all at once without thinking. It was cold in that room so water didn’t evaporate quickly. Even though I only watered about once a week, almost everybody was happy. Even my aloe was pretty well off though probably overwatered. I had another unidentified succulent though (I have no idea what it is.) that started to fall of and die at the roots. It looked just like your aloe. I showed it to my mom (whom has more qualifications to say than I can mention), and she said it was over watered.
She said it was no problem. Just put it someplace where the soil will dry out. That was three months ago and I haven’t watered this plant since. Except for the places where the roots just plain fell out, it looks fine.
From what I can tell, things aren’t actually falling out of the soil yet, so you have time before things start to die. I suggest putting it in a dry place and directing a fan at it to dry everthing out ASAP. Don’t water it again for at least a month.
Keep in mind though, I am a begginer making guesses.
Yes. The bases of some of the leaves look like there are cells lysing, perhaps from bacterial infection. That’s a problem you get with overwatered aloes.
Too much sun too fast would cause a color change to entire leaves, and possibly scabbing.
In growing houseplant aloes, my experience is that they need hard, crummy soil that doesn’t hold much water and benign neglect in order to thrive.
It’s very easy to see if it’s rotting. Slice off a leaf. A rotting one will not have a solid gel core, it will have a slush of rotting material in it. Do it and find out. Don’t mistake the yellow sap that is coming from the green outside of the plant, for rotting gel inside the plant.
I grew one for almost twenty years and it thrived in a high humus soil and lots of water. I only had rot on one baby plant in a pot without a hole, where the plant was sitting in water for weeks. So long as a drainage hole is in the pots none of them died from rotting. They looked terrible on the occasions of sun scald. I recognize it could be rotting. A leaf needs to be cut off and checked now. What happens next depends on what the results are. What happened to mine. One year a month early hard frost killed it and my other cacti. Who looks for hard frost in mid August?
