Image – Wikimedia/David J. Stang
Aloe vera is one of the succulents, or non-cactus succulents, that has achieved the most popularity in recent years. Its many medicinal properties and its easy cultivation have made it more than one buy a specimen to have at home.. But although it is a plant that reproduces very well by separating its shoots, you might be interested in knowing how to sow its seeds.
Planting is an experience that can be magnificent, since we witness the “birth” of a plant, which we then take care of with care, and when it is a plant that is also beneficial to health , it’s even more interesting. So If you want to know how to plant aloe vera, we will explain it to you.
How to get aloe vera seeds?
It is important to know, because of course if we already have a plant that has flowered, we will not need to buy seeds. Now well, so that a aloe vera to flower must be at least 4 years old from seed. At this age, its leaves will be about 30 to 35 centimeters in length more or less.
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How is the Aloe vera flower?
When does it bloom? does it in the spring, but it may take a while if the temperatures are still cool. Indeed, it needs slightly high temperatures to produce its flowers, around 20°C. Once this is done, we will see that a stalk sprouts from the center of the rosette of leaves, at the top of which the flowers will be. These will complete their development as soon as said flower stalk has reached its final size, which is usually about 40 centimeters high.
As soon as the yellow, slender, tube-shaped flowers open, pollinating insects such as bees or wasps pollinate them. A little after, the pollinated flowers will wither and the fruit will begin to ripen, which will appear as an elongated capsule 1 centimeter long by 0.5 centimeter wide. In this picture you can see what aloe vera fruits and seeds look like:
Image – ResearchGate.net
In any event, to ensure that the flowers are pollinated, you can take care of this task. To do this, you only need a small brush. You pass it through one flower, then another, then you pass it back through the first. You have to repeat every day until they fade, but it’s worth it.
How is aloe vera or aloe planted?
Got the seeds, now it’s time to sow them, but how? Good, first you need to know if you have everything you needto know:
- Small pots up to 10.5 cm in diameter
- Special substrate for succulents like this here
- watering can with water
- Multipurpose fungicide like the one you can buy here
- a sunny place
You have it? Next you need to follow this step by step:
- The first is to fill the pot with the substrate, but not completely. Between the surface of said substrate and the edge of the container there must be at least half a centimeter of distance, because in this way, when you water, you will not lose water.
- Then you have to water. The substrate must be very moist before sowing the seeds, but be careful: not waterlogged.
- Then take the seeds and place them on the surface. Put them as far away as possible; In addition, if the pot measures 10.5cm, the ideal is to put a maximum of 3 seeds. Because? Because if others are sown and they all germinate, then by separating them they could suffer irreversible damage, even drying out.
- Finally, you must treat them with an ecological spray fungicide, and cover them with a little substrate, not more than a thin layer so that the sun does not hit them directly, because if it were, they would not would not germinate.
How to take care of the aloe vera seedbed?
The care we will give to the seedbed will be minimal, since the only thing the seeds really need is light, heat and humidity, but without flooding the substrate. But even if they are very basic, they must be done well because it will depend on whether or not we have new factories. So let’s see how to deal with it:
Irrigation
The substrate for succulents is a mixture of soils which, if left in the sun, dries very quickly. For it, we have to try to keep it moist every day. And in order not to make a mistake with irrigation, what we are going to do is introduce a wooden stick at the bottom, and if we see that it comes out clean, we water.
Fungal treatments
Plant seeds can be damaged by fungi, especially if it is summer and they are in a humid environment such as a substrate that does not have time to dry out completely. For him, it is worth applying a multipurpose fungicide once a weekeven if the seeds have already germinated.
light and heat
In addition, to achieve a higher germination rate and, incidentally, that the plants grow well from the start, we need to place the seedbed outside if possible, so that it is directly exposed to the rays of the sun and receives heat. But if we do not have this possibility, we can leave it inside the house provided that we put a lamp that stimulates the growth of plants, like these.
How long do they take to germinate?
If the seeds are fresh – which is the case if they are extracted from the plant – and viable, it will not take long to see the first aloes germinate: maybe a week or two at most as long as they are planted in the same year, in summer. Now, if we bought them or if they are old, or if they are sown in autumn or winter, they will take longer to germinate.
The important thing here is that they have enough natural light and high temperatures.. Aloe vera is a plant that does not like the cold too much, so to germinate its seeds, they must be sown when the mercury in the thermometer reaches at least 20°C.
We hope that you have a very good plantation and that you will soon get new aloe vera.