Tree Aloe Aloe barberae

This is not a succulent that stays small. Aloe barberae is the tree aloe of eastern South Africa, and with years and drainage it lays down a thick, tapering, smooth grey trunk that forks repeatedly into candelabra branches, each tipped with a rosette of broad, recurved green leaves. Winter is its moment: coral to rose pink spikes open at the branch tips and honeyeaters work them over. Mature plants read as sculpture, so they land as the single focal plant in a courtyard, entry or dry garden.

Giving a tree aloe the drainage it needs

Drainage decides everything with this plant. It wants full sun, gritty free draining soil or a raised mound, and very little water through summer once it is established. In heavy clay, or in a bed on a lawn irrigation cycle, the base rots and a plant that took years to build is lost in a season, usually announced by a soft, discoloured patch at ground level. If your soil is clay, do not dig a hole and backfill with compost. Mound it up above the surrounding grade with coarse sand, gravel and a little loam, and plant into that. It suits warm temperate, subtropical and dry inland gardens and tolerates coastal conditions, but it is frost tender when young. Young plants do well in a large container for years before they need the ground. The other siting note is wind. The wood is soft and the limbs are heavy with stored water, so branches split in severe gusts. Keep it out of a wind tunnel between buildings and off the exposed corner of a block. It transplants well from large containers, which is how most advanced plants get placed.

Tree aloe or a ground level rosette

The other two succulents in this range stay low and stay put. Agave Blue Glow and Agave geminiflora are rosettes you place in a pot or repeat through gravel, and you can lift and move them if the design changes. Aloe barberae is a tree. It needs headroom, footprint and a commitment to the position, and it eventually shades and shelters what is planted beneath it. Choose the agaves for a bed you want to keep reading as a low, graphic pattern. Choose the tree aloe when the garden needs one plant to be the reason people look up. If you are unsure, remember that a rosette can be relocated and a tree aloe cannot. It sits with the other large stock in advanced trees.

Skirts, spent spikes and a light hand with feed

Pruning is mostly tidying. Dead leaves hang on below each rosette and can be pulled or cut away once they are dry, though many growers leave a skirt on younger plants to protect the trunk from sunburn. Cut spent flower stalks off close to the rosette after the winter display finishes. Remove damaged limbs in the warm months, not in wet weather, because the soft wood takes a while to seal. Feed sparingly. A controlled release fertiliser in early spring is enough for a plant in a container, and established plants in the ground rarely need anything. Heavy feeding and heavy water push weak, soft growth on a plant whose branches are already heavy.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 7 sizes, from 300mm up to Feature 2, priced from $189.00 to $8799.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Every size here is established stock rather than a starter plant, so this line is intended for immediate effect rather than for growing on. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to low water gardens.