By North Shore Gardener , Barbara Barger
Eagle-Tribune

Q: I’ve been reading your column for years and have gotten so much useful information from you. Now I wonder if you can help me with my aloe plant. I’ve had aloe plants for years wherever I’ve lived, and used them for burns. When I moved to a new apartment 15 months ago (a fourth-floor unit with a south window), I brought my only remaining aloe – a rather large round pot with a few small aloe plants in it – with me. It wasn’t doing very well in my last apartment because it wasn’t getting enough sun.

The aloe has sprung to life in my new apartment, filling the pot right up to the edges. It is so crowded that I decided to remove some of the smaller plants and pot them for friends. When I went to take them out, I discovered a stem coming out of one side of the plant, and that it was actually going to flower. The stem is about three feet from the top of the pot, and started with what looked like a large bud. The bud has now separated into other buds. Now the little single buds are starting to open from the bottom up. In all my years, I have never seen an aloe plant flower. It looks like the little flowers will be light purple. What’s going on? Is this a rare occurrence? Are there seeds to be collected once the flowers are out?

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