Half Sun - morning, or afternoon ?

[abrogard]

If you want to give plants half sun which half is best, morning or afternoon? Or does it simply not matter?

I want to grow some aloe vera I have and am thinking of putting them out into half shade.

 

[redback]

Aloe takes full sun. Generally morning sun is thought of as the best. It's also out of the wind - which comes mostly from the west here.

 

[abrogard]

Agave is very like aloe? I knocked down this overgrown agave and I got lots of little plants kinda were falling about everywhere, just seemed to brush off the stem and I decided to pot them, see if they'd root.

So I have them all in the 'potting shed' (i.e. the permanently shaded part at front under the eaves).
Keep them there while waiting to shoot or they need more sun?

And, getting back to the aloe, that's where they are, too. Mostly all 'whole' plants but a few are whatchacallums.. leaves I stripped off with a bit of white at the bottom, trying to propagate as in Youtube vids.

And all the 'whole' plants have been transplanted because when I got them they all looked pretty poor to me.

Point is: do I urgently need to get any or all of these out into the sun or just keep trucking, things are okay.. ?

 

[redback]

Agave is very like aloe?

Don't know.

Point is: do I urgently need to get any or all of these out into the sun or just keep trucking, things are okay.. ?

Keep newly potted plants in the shade until they 'pick up' i.e. start looking perky not droopy. Then put them in semi-shade and then into full sun. If the aloe is growing well in its pot now, it will take full sun if you plant it in the ground. Black plastic pots get hot in the sun and cause the roots to overheat.

 

[abrogard]

ah... incredibly important qualification there: 'if your plant it in the ground'. I better think of some way to deal with that, then. Maybe paint all the pots white, reflect the heat sufficiently?

I painted my plastic buckets which always used to die in a year or so: went brittle and cracked up and they live on virtually indefinitely after that. Bit different though. Not actually heat doing in the buckets, was it, more IV radiation. But still....

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Sounds like IV doing it, but that sounds like rubbish plastic, I have buckets I have had for years, and Adelaide is far enough south I wouldn't expect the climate to be hugely different from ours. Making them a lighter colour to keep them cooler in the sun sounds like a good idea. My friend who has a concreted garden tried growing potatoes in buckets with no success until I gave him a sheet of hardboard to keep the sun off the buckets, they like cool, damp ground.

 

[abrogard]

Can't remember where I got the buckets. Probably Woollies. Yep. Rubbish white leftover house paint I daubed on them. Kept them for years. Simple as that. Have you ever noticed how red painted car paint job deteriorate more than others? Lot of power in those different wavelengths of light I think.
I got some spuds in 'pots' (black plastic things), I think I mentioned them. I'm about to move them to full sun I think. Might give 'em a quick paint job first. I never ever thought about that black-plastic-heat-up thing.