A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum Cacti and Succulents in the Garden Aloe Vera troubles

Hello everyone. I purchased an aloe plant in May and repotted it into a larger pot. A few weeks later the plant was growing a new leaf but it was wiggling a lot. I figured I'd take it out and readjust the roots- but there weren't many left! My plant had root rot! I did some research and realized I made a silly mistake, no drainage hole! I was really upset thinking I'd killed my new plant. I cleaned up the roots and put it into dry soil, giving it a little water 2 weeks after and now only on a weekly bases (if I even remember to). The plant recently started growing it's second new leaf with me and I was very pleased thinking the plant was getting healthier. I took it with me to college (I moved in today) and was looking over the 4 plants I brought with me before heading to bed (it's 1:30am and I still haven't made it to bed!) One of my aloes leaves had a brown spot on it when I got it and I noticed it was spreading a lot the past few days. I decided I'd just pull it off tonight and then go to bed. But when I tried taking the leaf off the whole plant pulled up- no roots! None. At all. There doesn't seem to be any rot on the base so I stuck it back in the soil and gave it water (the soil was very very dry even though I gave it a very small amount of water a few days ago) but after doing more research I think it was a mistake to give it new water. I can't fix that right now- no dry soil at college to move it into! I was just wondering if there were any tips on what I should do? Other than the wiggling and the leaf I pulled off that was damaged when I got the plant, there doesn't seem to be any sickness above soil at all.

You could just make new plants from cuttings. Cut off the aloe leaves, leave them dry out at the end(so they heal over)..then place them in small bags with a bit of moist soil and seal it for a month. They usually make new baby plants. Then you can start all over with the right drainage pots and new soil.

Thank you so much, I'll definitely give that a try as soon as I have money for soil. I'm not sure how long that will take but I feel like the leaves should be able to survive until then, they've all done well so far. My plan for now is to wait a month before giving it a small amount of water. What type of soil would you suggest? Will it turn brown and seal up like it does with broken leaves?

Yes, it will turn brown on the ends..you can use those broken leaves as well next time. I just use your basic garden soil from Walmart $2 a bag.

Sounds good! I decided to cut one last night rather than wait for more damage. I'll wait for it to seal completely before bagging.

So I planted the cutting today. Lightly wet the soil, mixed it, and sealed the bag. Did I do it right?

Yup, that's how I used to do it.

It ended up rotting. I cut the part of it that wasn't mushy to try again but it doesn't seem to be sealing up the same.

Both times I've tried this it ended up rotting.
The plant itself seems to be declining. The new growth is still growing but I've cut off two more leaves that were flopping off and dying. Still no root growth.

I am at a loss..next time try taking the healed plant tip and just putting it directly into the soil to see if it would root that way.

Healed plant tip? What do you mean?
I'm going to try it with all of the leaves lol the plants are cheap enough that I could buy another but I just hate to give up.