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June 2015<\/small><\/p>\n
Dave’s spiral aloe is sporting some fine sacred geometry. He sent me these photos to show the progress his aloe has made since I photographed it in July 2012: <\/p>\n
“I came across your Bloom Day July 2012<\/a> posting and saw a photo of my Aloe polyphylla at the bottom. I thought you’d like to see a recent picture of it, three years later and still getting bigger. It’s about 34″ diameter now<\/em>.”<\/p>\n June 2015<\/small><\/p>\n And a wider shot of Dave’s slice of urban horticultural heaven in the Lower Haight, San Francisco.<\/p>\n The study of the recurring forms in nature, or sacred geometry, tends to attract some New Agey theories and followers, but the Vetruvian<\/a> numbers don’t lie. Whether spiraling aloes or nautilus shells, these patterns repeat over and over. We crave them in our gardens and co-opt them in our buildings. There are Pinterest boards devoted to Things that Spiral<\/a>, which is where I found this photo of the spiral staircase at Kew Gardens. It’s the one I should have taken when I visited but was too overwhelmed to lift a camera.<\/p>\n Aloe polyphylla’s home is a high rainfall area in the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa. Do not, as I have done, treat it as a dry-garden aloe. In my opinion, causing the death of a spiral aloe under your care ranks up there as one of horticulture’s biggest heartaches. I’ve killed several. Maybe half a dozen. (I wrote about one such attempt here<\/a>.) It seemed only right to pass up the aloes for sale in very affordable one-gallons at Terra Sol Nursery in Santa Barbara recently, where the above photo was taken. I’m just not ready yet to try again, which must be a great relief to the spiral aloes of the world. <\/p>\n In the meantime, it is a comfort to have Mitch’s<\/a> portrait of the mythic Spiral Aloe.<\/p>\n (Thank you, Dave, for an update on your spectacular spiral aloe!)<\/p>\n <\/big><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" June 2015 Dave’s spiral aloe is sporting some fine sacred geometry. He sent me these photos to show the progress his aloe has made since I photographed it in July 2012: “I came across your Bloom Day July 2012 posting … Continue reading ![\"](\"http:\/\/i52.photobucket.com\/albums\/g23\/botanizeme\/june2015\/unnamed%201.jpg\")
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