I recently took a road trip across South Africa. Its a great time of year to travel. The weather isn’t too hot and many plants are flowering. We stopped along the way to take photographs of the ones that really impressed us, starting with some aloes from the Eastern Cape.


Beautiful!!!
indeed – and they are a lot darker (redder) than the aloes we get in KZN. maybe something to do with the soil?
cool pics. these are definitely more striking than the ones we get up here.. may be the soil 😉
Those particular flowers are of a species called Aloe ferox (Bitter aloe), which is very common in both the Eastern Cape and here in the Western Cape where I live. In the winter in my garden the bees go crazy for them as do the Cape weaver birds, which often pop up with a face full of orange pollen from digging around in the flowers for nectar. I’m not sure if the Bitter aloe would do well in Natal, because it doesn’t like too much water. You could always try it in a raised rock garden or a container with extra grit for the added drainage.
Hello there,I was wondering if you could perhaps help me………….I run a bush lodge in Madikwe game reserve.
We are situated near a rock outcrop and have a colony of rock dassies,I am having such trouble with them eating every thing in the lodge garden,is there no type of aloe or do you perhaps know of any plants that dassies dislike,I dont want to harm the dassies,just that it is costing me a fortune in plants.
Look forward to hearing from you.
cheers
Gary
Hi Gary
I’m going to turn this comment into a post to see if anyone can respond?
Cheers,
Niall