Aloes are very popular and some of the most rewarding plants to cultivate. They make excellent accent plants owing to their often strange and inspiring architectures, as well as the bright flowers that offset the grey-green leaves. They are also very suitable as container plants and small aloes can be used very effectively as border plants at the edge of a bed. Although aloes are most often included in rockeries, their application in horticulture is not limited to this feature and they can be used in almost any setting and in conjunction with most common garden plants. Their natural adaptation to harsh and often arid climates makes aloes outstanding subjects for the water-wise garden. Aloe is a genus in the Asphodeloideae family containing about 600 species of flowering succulent plants. Aloes are sometimes confused with Agaves. Contrarily to Agaves, Aloe leaves contain a gel like sap. Another difference is that Aloes don’t die after blooming as most Agaves do.

Aloe sinkatana is a small, stemless prolific suckering Aloe, native to Sudan. Aloe sinkatana, native to the mountains of Sudan around the 1000 meter level, has proven to be one of the most useful small landscape aloes. It produces pale yellow to bright orange flowers in pyramidal clusters in winter. The green leaves may sometimes be tinged reddish and have oblong white blotches and the margins are armed with more or less forward pointing sharp teeth. The rosettes are up to 30 cm in diameter. This species is highly drought tolerant. The flowers of Aloe sinkatana attract hummingbirds at a time when there are not many other hummingbird flowers available.