Here is a picture of the ground where many, many more heads of the plant are growing. You can see the new plant heads towards the bottom of the picture.

Lots of leaves from other neighboring plants are mixed in with the picture.

Aeonium arboreum

Beautiful. Have you asked her for a clipping yet?

I would like to not have it around. The dozens of them growing wild with their tubular smooth brown stems curving around in a pile on the ground looks alot like a group of snakes. Seriously, I'd rather they be gone. The flowering pineapple thing is pretty, but everything else about the plant is a bit horrifying.

Are you kidding. I would like to have one as a houseplant

Maybs if it wasn't so overgrown and in the shade. How does it take being cut back. It seems like it is the wrong plant in an overgrown situation. i am not knowledgeable about Aeoniums but I thought they were more of a sun and rock outcropping kind of plant. i am hearing a possible resentment of a neighbors growing style? Some of us are more chaotic than others. There looks to be some old populations of aloes and agaves. Old gardens sometimes need reductive actions and some of us have a hard time tearing into our plants. We are good at planting and nurturing and bad at discipline. Sorry, I didn't know that this was a ID so one could know ones enemy and get rid of it scenario.

The plant straddles the property line between me and my neighbor. I don't think my neighbor would care if I did anything to the plant. Neither I nor the neighbor tends to that area of the property so all sorts of things are growing wild. I'm surprised people actually want this plant. A few other people I've showed the picture to want it as well. Seriously, pile of snakes. Straight out of Indiana Jones.

This post was edited by gardenweb88 on Mon, May 6, 13 at 15:25

Some people like snakes and some see what you describe as a mass of twining snakes as an interesting textural mass. I guess it is one persons trash is another person's treasure. I think it 's effect is lost in the competing brush and just comes through as mess and more mess. In the right environment, the cascading mass of snakes could be really nice coming out of a raised tilted container on a wall. I think if one got it out to more sun, you would have more rosette and less snake.. .

Oh, it's a great plant. It really is... Just my opinion. :) Its beauty looks a tad lost in the mess it's in right now, and if it were whacked back some to shorten the stems, the plant could take on a more uniform, compact look and maybe have more of a chance of impressing you in time (and the rosettes whacked off could be rooted if you liked). It's a pretty, healthy thing that could just use some attention. I'd be happy to scoop some up.

Don't worry gardenweb88,
I agree, the plant is not aesthetically pleasing. Pruning it would make it a lot less.....everywhere and bare. lol

If cleaned up and cared for, it should look a little more like these youngins, except not purple. They do tend to fall over if grown with too little light and too much water. They make fine container plants and all you have to do is cut off branches and stick them in the ground to propagate them. If they get leggy, dig up the plant, chop off the tops, and stick the tops back in the ground. poof. all cleaned up and pretty again.

if there is a bare spot like I have in the middle, I can just prune a bit and fill in the bare spot like I would a flower arrangement. But this is my lady's bed and she is bored with them and trying to figure out what she wants to replace them with so no fixing the mass for these little guys,

If you pull 'em up to dispose of them, I'd love to pay shipping for one. Just saying... :)
Hope I am not stepping on toes!

they can be quite dramatic in a mass-planting.

I would worry more about the Agave americana behind those Aeoniums. They offset like crazy and form a mass of nasty teeth.