Aloe’s allure in a garden

Read all the grim headlines these days about battered stocks and slumping retail sales, and it’s easy to forget that one of the greatest gifts in the garden is free. Aloe, that wily and wild-looking plant, is easily grown from a simple snip. Take the cuttings from a neighbor cleaning out his flower bed (or scavenged from the roadside), and you can start your own stand of these otherworldly succulents. Come Christmas, the plants throw up long stalks crowned with flowers, the yellow or orange coveted by hungry hummingbirds. Look for our feature on aloe next Saturday as weekly garden coverage returns to the Home section.