Aloe Variegata or Tiger Aloe

Aloe Variegata

The Aloe Variegata is a common plant which has been cultivated for many years. The succulent is also known as Tiger Aloe or a Partridge-breasted Aloe, owing to the white/light-green markings on the boat-shaped leaves. Despite being common, it is not an easy plant to grow. It is a flowering succulent, producing flowers in spring on short flower stems.

 The ideal place to grow this plant is on a windowsill. The Aloe Variegata likes fairly dry summers and very little water in winter. A trap that many cactus and succulent collectors fall into is that they keep it too wet in summer and dry in winter. In order to propagate this plant, one needs to remove some of the offsets from its base and plant it separately. It is also possible to plant it from a seed, but seeds of this succulent are not widely available.

The plant grows to between 20 and 30 cm and has between 18 and 24 leaves arranged in three levels. The new leaves emerge from the centre, pushing outwards the old leaves. The old leaves eventually die off and turn golden brown. The Tiger Aloe reaches maturity in 3 to 7 years, depending on the conditions in which it is kept. The flowers of this succulent are orange and they develop in clusters at the top part of the raceme of flowers emerging from the centre of the Tiger Aloe. Flowers are normally produced in March and April.