Yes this one definitely has a mind of it's own, a friend had hers trained (bullied into submission) up a pillar to an upper enclosed deck, when she opened the sliding windows the scent was right at nose level. The branches do want to arch outwards rather than grow up, when mine got to the top of the fence I cut the lower branches out and let it have it's own way. I do very little pruning on mine now but when I did there was some dieback even with sterilized pruners, probably because I pruned late winter when I should have been pruning after bloom. I mentioned mine was about 12', wrong, I'd say it's closer to 15'+ now. I think until the framework bulks up a bit it's a shrub that needs to be staked if not tied in against a wall or a fence. This past winter the temp dropped below 0 F. several nights but this shrub came through just fine.

Kitty, I am also going crazy over pineapples. I got about twenty grown from tops so far. Most aren't close to fruiting yet though, many was started in the last six months. I'm really eager to finally get fruit. Check out the link to one of our fellow Garden webber, all about pineapple and really well done page with great pictures plus info. Here is a link that might be useful: gwebber Alnesbit

Punch is great. Here is a pic from early season 2014 that I really like because it shows how different it looks in the spring / early summer. And here is an early season pic of Pineapple Upsidedown Cake from this year.

I tried growing them in our sand dune 6 years ago but they didn't do too well. I got 2 plants in large pots about 5 years ago. I believe they were sugarloaf and they were over wintered plants that were being cleared. I left the 2 Sugarloaf in pots, divided and re-potted them until I had a dozen over grown 10gal. pots. This spring I divided them and tossed about half. I currently have 7 pots with 8 fruits. For this variety, and maybe others - a stalk will produce 1 fruit. It also can produce side shoots. Up to 3. The usual recommendation is to remove all but 1 of the side shoots, let it fruit the next year, then pull the plant. This works well for the commercial growers because the plant increases in size, but produces the same amount of fruit. Not economical for them. For us, when the pot gets crowded and the fruit size suffers, we can just divy them up into more pots and go on enjoying even more fruits. The plants are also send up new shoots from the base. I think most of my expansion is from base growth. Plants from culture or tops take longer to fruit, usually 2 years. A divided plant will fruit the first year since it starts out with a decent root system. I would buy the largest plant I could find if I was to start over. Store fruit tops are too iffy and slow. Pineapples seem to be mostly pest free. Vermin eating the fruit happens, but bugs don't like them.They are thrifty with water, and tolerate neglect and being root bound. As for flavor, I harvest my fruits when they are yellow and fragrant. They are sweet and heavenly. I will never buy a store pineapple again.