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 vaombe commonly known as Malagasy Tree Aloe is a beautiful large unbranched succulent to 3.6m tall or more with large solitary rosettes up to 1.5m across of recurved long smooth green leaves that have whitish teeth. These leaves are cupped-shaped in cross section and take on rich red tones in winter. The fiery red flowers are borne in erect branched racemes in mid-winter. Plant in full sun and water occasionally to little once established, though plants grow much faster and more lushly with regular irrigation. This large Aloe comes from Southern Madagascar where it grows in dry thorny scrub on limestone soils. The specific epithet comes from the Malagasy name ‘vahombre’.