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 pretoriensis has distinct characteristics that can be used to distinguish it from most other Aloes. The dried leaf tips have a distinctive red colour and the racemes are exceptionally tall for this plant. Juvenile plants can be mistaken for Aloe suprafoliata, one can distinguish the two quite easily by looking at the racemes and inflorescence which is simple and the raceme has a silvery sheen to it. The specie name ‘pretoriensis’ refers to its distribution near Pretoria. This non-threatened Aloe, being indigenous to South Africa, is found in grasslands in the northern parts of Gauteng, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Flowers are orange-red to a bright red colour. Flowers are quite long and are slightly constricted at the mouth. Flowering occurs in the winter months from May to July and attracts birds to the garden.