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Aloe 'Brown Betty' - A smaller aloe growing to about a foot high with 6- to 8-inch-wide rosettes on short vertical stems with leaves that in winter are beautiful reddish-brown splashed with cream spots and having pinkish teeth along the margins. In spring through fall the spots on the leaves remain but the background color turns a nice mid-green and through this period is also when the delicate solitary or few branched inflorescences rise up 12 to 18 inches bearing whitish yellow buds striped with green that mature to flowers that are almon orange with green petal tips.
Plant in full sun to light shade in a well-drained soil and irrigate occasionally to infrequently. Hardiness is not well known on this relatively new hybrid, but it has tolerated short duration temperatures around 30 °F for us and likely it should prove to be a bit hardier.
This hybrid was created was by Karen Zimmerman, Succulent Plant Propagator at the Huntington Botanical Gardens, who made the selection from hybrid seedlings that resulted in a cross between Kelly Griffin’s Aloe 'KG# 5' with Nathan Wong’s 'Aumakua Mano' and is a sibling seedling of another of Karen's hybrids called Aloe 'Gargoyle'. This plant was initiated in the garden's micropropagation laboratory (tissued culture) and the resulting plants introduced in 2013 through the Huntington's International Succulent Introduction program as ISI 2013 Aloe 'Brown Betty'. Our plants were propagated from a single plant purchased from Karen Zimmerman when she spoke about her aloe breeding programs to the Santa Barbara Cactus and Succulent Society in May 2015 and we have sold this plant since 2022.
The information about Aloe 'Brown Betty' displayed on this web page is based on our research conducted in the nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also include observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant. |
