I left my aloe plant with a friend for a few months, and he has seemed to be overwatered. The poor guy lost all of his roots to root rot, and he is losing his color. The leaves are flat at the top, but bumpy at the bottom with some of them browning. Although he isn’t in the best shape, there seems to be new, heathy growth from the middle and it doesn’t look too bad where the roots used to be. Is there anything I can do to save him?
Aloes actually have root nodes on their stems (google what to look for, lots of info there). If you can locate any my suggestion would be to chop below them, let it sit on the counter for a week to callus over (this feels crazy but its an important step), and then put it in water. Repot in soil when you have a healthy root system again. This allows you to monitor what would be happening below the surface of the soil because you can see it! I’ve had good success with this but it does take a very long time for it to reproduce roots. Unless it does have a healthy root system already below the soil now and I just can’t tell from the photo. If this is the case, I would change your soil to a cactus/succulent soil to ensure proper drainage/moisture retention, and I would downsize its pot to something 1-2” larger than its root ball. Terracotta if you have it, but not a must. Good luck!
1 j'aimeThanks for the advice! I cut right under the root node (it had no roots at all) and the plant is currently sitting on the counter now. I’ll let you know how it goes!
1 j'aime