Aloe 'Always Red'

[Azuleja]

Leo Thamm hybrid said to flower up to 10 months out of the year. Slowly stem forming, small in size compared to other Thamm hybrids.

[Viegener]

Flowering now. There were more in the fall & more coming. I have three plants of this & all are good but not overly fast growers. Here's the description on Sunbird Aloes site in South Africa. Leo Thamm says it can bloom up to 10 months a year. Mine probably established enough yet.

[Spination]

Mine formed a big clump relatively fast, but last season's (2016-2017) freezes burned all the tips back (26 F was the worst) pretty far down the leaves. I spent considerable time breaking them off after they dried up. Too much brown, looked ugly, ugly, ugly! This year, tips have yellowed, but looks much better than last time around (29 F lowest this season - so far).
Here's a record of the growth rate
2014

2014 02 23 Aloe Always Red e.jpg (174.36 KiB) Viewed 4589 times

2015

2015 01 27 Aloe Always Red b.jpg (158.43 KiB) Viewed 4589 times

2016

2016 03 22 Aloe Always Red a.JPG (205.74 KiB) Viewed 4589 times

no pics 2017 - looked pretty nasty
Today 2018

2018 01 23 Aloe Always Red a.jpg (149.4 KiB) Viewed 4589 times

and a whole lot of blooms on the way all throughout the clump

2018 01 23 Aloe Always Red b.jpg (114.33 KiB) Viewed 4589 times

In my opinion, this one's cold tolerance (not great) makes our location in northern Calif a bit far north to look pristine year over year, but it has survived outdoors, and it does put on a good flower show. It would probably do much better with some cover from overhead trees, or up near a house wall. My clump is out in the open, so it's a pretty good record shown of how it looks with winters from mid 20's to freezing in terms of lows. Those few degrees lower than 29 to 26 the year before made a huge difference in appearance.