Aloe Vera Plants and Interesting Pots

Aloe Vera plants have been grown for centuries as both a decorative succulent and a medicinal plant. Learn more about this interesting plant, and discover the importance of choosing the right container for your plant.

Produced by the Department of Communications at Kansas State University. For more information, visit our website at: http://www.kansasgreenyards.org

Transcript:
Aloe Vera Plants and Interesting Pots

Back to our grandmother’s days, we’ve always had plants like this one – the Aloe Vera on the windowsill in the kitchen. It wasn’t grown as a houseplant, but it was grown for its pain relieving qualities if you should get a burn while you’re cooking. You can cut the leaf and dab the sap on the burned area. It seals over, excludes the oxygen, and relieves a lot of the pain. So, it’s an old folk remedy for pain from burns. And, it’s been very common around kitchens at home for a long, long time. They’re becoming very popular now.

When we bring plants indoors, we bring them in for visual impact, to enhance our interior décor, and bring a bit of nature in. Too often, we focus only on the plant, and not enough in the container that it’s planted in. For instance, if you look at this plant, you’ll notice that it’s in a square plastic pot. It has an entirely different appearance than this other plant in a small clay pot.

We may be familiar with this style, but we can change that image again by putting the plant in a small bonsai pot. You can use a small round one, or a small square bonsai pot, and change the whole impact of that plant. It looks much different.

The point is, if we use a bonsai pot, we can change the appearance with a simple clay or plastic pot, or we can use squares and rounds. Just remember that the appearance of the container is as important as the appearance of the plant.

This feature story prepared with Alan Stevens, Kansas State University Research and Extension State Leader, Horticulture. For more information, visit your local county extension office or visit our website at KansasGreenYards.org.