Yes, I can imagine you have to liberate a few plants on a regular basis just so the others can breathe.
I just unloaded about 50 plants a couple weeks ago, so I'm pretty thrilled about having less watering to do on the patio. And there's more space for the humans out there, which is appreciated by my very tolerant life partner.
The inflorescence comes from near the center of the rosette, but it emerges in between the leaves and is not terminal. That plant has been flowering every year pretty reliably, unlike some of the other aloes, which opt out during drought years. It is solitary (no pups) for some time and would make an excellent candidate for a container plant because it stays pretty small.
Here is the offspring from last year's flowers, which gave hybrids with the arborescens behind it. I have been nipping the buds on the arborescens this time around to get something different.
The reddish plant with the flower buds is "Cynthia Giddy"... check out the photos in the database, which show its color palette (green to reddish brown). Here's a container plant on the patio (3 gallon/25cm pot) which is pretty much all green.
I like that plant a lot because it flowers regularly, often during the seasons (like summer and early fall) when few of the other aloes are in bloom.
