Aloe aristata (Lace Aloe - Hated by Clare)

Real Aloes all the way from South Africa which - as long as they don't get too wet - will grow happily in chilly old England. They have typically fleshy leaves (you could probably use the sap to treat burns as with Aloe vera) and they send up orangey-red flower spikes that last for several weeks during the summer. They spread - very slowly - by producing little pups at their bases which grow into proper plants. The effect is like a bigger juicier mat of Sempervivums (the House Leek). As the story below will tell you, they can be grown in pots but if in the ground just give them plenty of light and ventilation and pretty sharp drainage - they don't adapt well to soggy sites.

We propagate them by division but the original plant came from my neighbour Clare who'd had these plants in the same terracotta pot for years and years through the harsh winters of the 1980s and she told me they never suffered in any way. I didn't believe her at the time but I do now. P.S. I then discovered recently that the reason she'd left them out in those awful harsh Siberian winters was in the hope that they'd die because she didn't like them. Well done little Aloes. Well done.