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Aloe schelpei (Shelpe's Aloe) - A freely-branching aloe that forms dense low clumps with open rosettes of blue-green 12-18 inch long by 4 inch wide gracefully recurved leaves with pink margins. In late fall (typically November into December here) appear the 1-2 foot tall well branched inflorescences topped with dense heads (cylindrical-conical) of multicolored flowers that are deep red in bud and pale orange upon opening.
Plant in full sun in a well-drained soil and irrigate occasionally to infrequently. Hardy at least to 25° F (Undamaged in our 2007 freeze at this temperature) and listed as hardy to upper 20s under tree canopies at the Ruth Bancroft Garden.
Aloe schelpei comes from grasslands and steep slopes at around 7,000 feet in the Boli Gorge in the Shoa Province of Ethiopia. It was described by Gilbert Westacott Reynolds in 1961 from flowering material in cultivation and named to honor Dr. Edmund Andre (Ted) Schelpe (1924-1985) of the Bolus Herbarium at the University of Cape Town, who discovered the plant in 1952 on a steep grassland slope on a private farm across from the Mugar River (Blue Nile) in the Boli Gorge. Our plants from Brian Kemble of the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek who sent us a cutting off of his plant in 2004 and we have grown and sold this wonderful plant ever since.
Information displayed on this page about Aloe schelpei is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.
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