How to Transplant a Giant, Half-Dead Aloe Plant

I’ve been putting off transplanting my 15 year old gigantic aloe plant for years. Yes. Years. In fact, it was flopping over so badly, I had to tie it up. Here are directions for how to clean up a straggly aloe plant, transplant it, and make it healthy again.

The back story:

Sherry is an aloe plant that entered my life about 15 years ago. For years, she did great! She was a pampered addition to my indoor herb garden, and was beautiful and lush. She also gave me many pups (aloe babies).

But then I went through a transition time in my life, and I moved several times in the last 15 years…. From a hot place to a colder environment; from inside to outside; from a dry area to a very wet one….she’s seen it all.

Although aloes are tough, there is only so much they can take.

I’d left her too long in the sun (weeks one time). I overwatered her so many times when I left her out in rainstorms. Her pot was way too large for her tiny “feet” (root system), and she was far too top-heavy. Finally….I had to do something, as I could see her failing fast.

Over these past seven years, Sherry has had ups and downs from being in supremely good health to being near death. But yesterday, I realized I had to finally do something to help her out and FAST. It was time to transplant her, prune her leaves, and take a look at her root system.

So, that’s what I did.

Here’s a video of the entire process, and how beautiful she looks now!

Basic Steps in Transplanting a Floppy, Overgrown Aloe Vera Plant

Step 1) Remove the plant from the pot.

Be careful when you do this with a large aloe plant. They are very top heavy, and can easily snap. You don’t want this. Once removed from the pot, you’ll be able to take a look at the root system and remove any aloe pups (baby aloe plants attached to the root stalk).

Step 2) Decide what to do with the roots.

There’s a lot of advice out there about what to do with the root system of a plant when transplanting. The thing is, what you do has more to do with the type of plant and the condition of the root ball (if there is one) than any strict guideline for transplanting.

In the case of Sherry, my huge aloe, there was NO root system….only a long, unhealthy looking root stalk. This is because, I’m ashamed to admit, I had neglected her terribly over the past seven years of her 15 year life span.

She’s been through too much heat and sun.

She’s been through long, long periods of no water.

She’s been through periods of too much water (leaving her outside in rainy seasons).

She’s grown too large on top.

Her pot is too big, and the soil too wet.

And I could go on.

I think I’ve broken every single rule for healthy aloe care there is. And still….Sherry, the Survivor has persisted. And….the time came, when I couldn’t wait any longer….. I had to take a look at that root system and (cross fingers) see the shape it was in…..

As it turns out, Sherry had NO root system…. This was due to the amount of rot that had occurred out of sight under the soil line. Finally, this unhealthy situation was presenting in her appearance above the soil, prompting me to do something.

A healthy aloe root system will be somewhat small compared to the top of the plant. This is fine. However, there needs to be some kind of root system, or the plant will eventually fail. Sherry was in this situation. All she had was a very long stalk that should have had roots growing from it, but didn’t. Therefore, there wasn’t much for me to do.

Had she had a nice bunch of roots, I could have done one of two things: A) Remove compacted soil from them if it exists; or B) Leave it alone and transplant as is.

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Step 3) Peel off the unhealthy or dead lower leaves.

When you remove the leaves, just peel them right off. Try not to take too much from the root stalk though. You can see how I do this in the video link above.

When I removed all the leaves on Sherry that needed to go, I was left with a REALLY long root stalk and very few….OK, NO roots. This could be problematic, and we’ll see how she does.

Step 4) Decide on a new pot.

Now aloes don’t like to be in large pots. They actually do better, as most succulents do, in a smaller pot. They like to be a little crowded, even. Sherry’s current pot was quite large, too large in fact.

So I had a choice: I could cut the root stalk back, which may have thrown her into more shock. The stalk is about an inch thick at the fattest point. My other choice was to just leave it alone, and deal somehow with the twelve-inch long stalk as is.

I chose to leave the stalk intact, as I didn’t want to traumatize her any more than I already had.

But that left me with a VERY long root stalk to contend with. I needed a pot that was tall enough to accommodate the root stalk, yet somewhat narrow, as well. The original pot I had planned to put her into was just too small for that long root stalk.

I ended up choosing a rather tall pot, with a 15 inch diameter, which was far too large a pot for her.

What I did to crowd the root area inside the pot was to add rocks at the bottom, including a very large rock that took up a lot of space and gave the pot more weight on the bottom in order to hold the heavy weight of the upper plant as she grows and becomes healthy again.

You can see how I did this in the video.

Step 5) Add drainage and soil.

I like to add at least an inch of stones at the bottom of my pots. I’ve found over the years that this helps enhance the drainage and keeps soil from compacting at the bottom and clogging up the drainage hole. There’re a lot of ways to pot a plant, and this is just one of my techniques.

Step 6) Add the plant and more soil.

I made a place for the root stalk all the way to the bottom, and placed Sherry into the pot. Then I added more soil until it was within two inches of the top.

NOTE: There are a couple of ways to deal with an aloe root area you’ve had to cut into and that will be going below the surface of the soil.

1) You can leave the plant out in the air for a day or several in order for the cut areas to callous over a bit. This makes it less possible for bacteria, fungi, etc. to damage the moist areas below the soil as you water.

2) You can plant the plant as is, and decide not to water for a couple of days. The soil contains oxygen, and if you use sterile soil, this is a great way to handle the situation if you want to get the plant directly into a pot.

I know how time-bound I am, and I decided to go ahead and get her into a pot right away, as I wasn’t sure if and when I’d be back to finish the job.

Step 7) Add a mulch layer on top and make it pretty if you want.

I added some more succulents with very shallow root systems on top of the soil, and then added small river stones for both mulch and interest.

And that’s it!

I’ll be giving her a good, deep water in about a week, but for now, the moistness of the fresh soil out of the bag should be fine, and also give her a chance to rest and recuperate; especially since she’s coming out of a very wet and waterlogged soil situation.

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Here’s an update video 10 months later so you can see how my giant, half-dead aloe plant is doing now!

Final Thoughts on Transplanting Sherry, My Aloe Vera Plant

Sherry’s been with me for a LONG time, and I didn’t want to lose her. I think the way I handled this transplant was a bunch of pretty good choices. What makes me feel best about this is the fact that aloe plants are really quite difficult to kill.

If you have tips and other ideas, let me know in the comments!

Here are some other articles or videos you may enjoy:

How to Make Your Own Aloe Vera Gel and How to Use It

The Healing Powers of Honey: Seven Healing Ideas

How to Make Your Own Natural Aspirin

Herbs You Can Grow Indoors Year Round

The Ultimate Companion Planting Guide

Video: Make Your Own Relaxing Tea Blend

Video: Making Elderberry Syrup with Frozen Berries (or Fresh or Dried)

And there are literally hundreds more articles on my website, and my YouTube channel is getting going too. I hope you’ll subscribe! :-)

Hugs, Health, and Self-Reliance,

Heidi

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