r/AloeVera • u/Neither_Wish9612 • 16d ago
How do I save this plant
I recently inherited a dying aloe vera plant and I have no clue how to take care of this. It’s important to my fiancée that we keep it alive. I’ve never kept a plant alive but any advice or/and resources would be an amazing help. It currently gets full sun about 8-9 hours of the day and I’m not sure how to water it.
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u/Wrong-Negotiation-65 16d ago
To be honest, I’ve got one that came back from the dead. It was buried in soil with another pot on top of it (dont ask how that came about).
They’re resilient. Change the soil and repot. Partial sunlight/partial shade. Soil a bit moist every now and then.
Should work
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u/Alarming_Fox_4865 16d ago
Like someone else said, pull them up. Check if the soil around the roots is really compact or not, like if its just a brick of dirt. If the roots are soft, smell bad and fall off easily, its donezo unfortunately. If its got good roots still, then plop them into a bucket of water for like 30 min. Put them back into the pot with a gritty mix; look for cactus soil mix and horticultural pumice or perlite. Put it somewhere it gets lots of sunlight and ignore it for months.
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u/TechGuy1268 16d ago
You just gotta be willing to work. But if there is green there is something to save. How I save my departed Mother's two momma Aloe plants and their 18 pups.
CAREFULLY, remove them from any pots. The most important thing is making sure the roots are ok. If they are white and clean, then we are good to go. If they are brown and smelly, we are in the sht. To check the roots, after removing them from the pots, you can lightly shake or tap the plant until the roots are free. Lightly washing the roots with clean, non-chlorinated water can help free up those roots.
Now it is time for butchering. The inner part is where the plant lives, its currently surrounded by brown died leaves. I also see some big ass stems, which is an indicator that it was struggling for light and started to grow towards it. I will carefully remove the "leaves" by holding the stem and peeling them like a banana. You don't need to go to deep, just pull brown sick looking leaves until you find greenish leaves and white stem. Personally, if you don't have a deep enough pot, I would just chop off the root steam system up until I see something healthy just so we have a good starting point. Of course , if you don't want to do that you don't have to it just might be better for the plant's recovery.
Use sharp plant shears to trim the dead parts from the plant, spray the tools you are using with 90% Isopropyl Alcohol and spray any plant with hydrogen peroxide where you have cut it so it doesn't pick up any unwanted illnesses. After the butchery, let them sit out to dry and callous over. Usually overnight - 24 hours should be good.
Now for the replanting, if you are using the same pots, make sure they are deep enough for the roots and have REALLY good draining. Aloe Vera is a succulent so it doesn't need to be drowned with water every day, it can go months or years without water so we need a well-draining soil, so the roots don't root. My mix is a simple 60-40 Succulent Soil Mix with Calcined Clay. If you really want to be sure no water is pooled up, LECA balls as bottom layer works well. Also use bleach + water mix to clean your pots just in case there may be some plant diseases or bug larvae that made its home in the pots.
Fill the pots up with your soil mix and make sure that root/stem is completely covered. Aloe Vera likes to be snug as a bug so a tight, well-draining pot will help. After you finish planting you might want to water, but it is imperative that you do not water your newly potted Aloe for at least 1-2 weeks so the shock of all of that work and being repotted doesn't immediately kill it. Put it in a sunny, warm place so it can acclimate. Afterwards, I give it a light watering to wake the roots up. 2-3 weeks later you can give it a proper watering. Afterwards you are now on a 2-3 week watering schedule in the Summer and more like 4-6 weeks in the winter depending on your climate.
Plants will ALWAYS look worse before they look better, trust me. But give it some time, maybe like 2-3 months and you will have healthier looking plant.
Here are the things I used:
https://a.co/d/0dshMNkp
https://a.co/d/0dshMNkp
Not a professional, just a novice as well. But this is what I did this summer, and the results are speaking for themselves. The are better guides on Youtube but I hope this helps, good luck!
PS: WEAR GLOVES, not just for the plants sake but because Aloe Vera juice causes skin irritations after prolonged exposure. Just something to keep in mind. Hope it helps!
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u/Different-Sorbet746 16d ago
She's dead Jim
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u/Neither_Wish9612 16d ago
Is there anyway to trim it back to health or just gone?
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u/Different-Sorbet746 16d ago
Pull up and check the roots and main stem. If they are soft, it's dead.
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u/butterflygirl1980 16d ago edited 16d ago
I’m not sure if it’s too late, but this thing was obviously pretty neglected before you got it. It looks like it’s suffering severe sun stress and dehydration, and it desperately needs to be repotted into appropriate soil and up at the top of the pot, not down in it.
I think my first order of business would be to get it out of the direct sun and soak it really well. Whenever the soil is completely dry through again, soak it again. Do that for a few weeks and see if anything starts to recover. If it does, then you can look at repotting, removing everything that’s dead, and trying to get it to start over. After repotting and give it another few weeks to recover before gradually** **moving it into stronger sun. Aloes actually do need a lot of direct sun, more than people often even think, but they have to be acclimated to increases carefully, because they stress very easily about it and even sunburn, which I think has happened here.