A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2003 Can you prune Aloe Vera that is too big?

i have an loe that I purchased in a 3 inch pot. Its now huge...over 3 feet across and has claimed an entire corner of my kitchen. I have him in a 14 inch pot..he could use a bigger one but I am afraid if i give him the space he will take over the entire house.
Today, he accidentally got knocked over when someone ran into one of his longer spikes. Can you prune these things somehow? Could I just cut off the top 5 spikes and try to root those..or what? I never thought he would get so huge...but I cant plant him outside.
Anyone have any ideas?[email]null[/email]

I don't know if this will help, but I recently got some pieces of an aloe plant from a friend whose aloe takes over the pot every year or two.

His pot gets full of new growth and it turns out to be many plants. He takes the all out, and pulls out the smallest ones and the largest ones. They all have their own roots so he doesn't have to worry about that. Then he takes enough of the remaining plants so it looks good and puts them back in the pot with fresh soil.

He has done this several times over the years and it still looks good.

I have my 4 in ground.but just got them from my mom on a visit to tn.poor things were crammed in a pot and had very little soil left.see your TX,don't know what part of TX.why not plant in ground?if are like up in the extreme [art of state could just grow indoors in winter(like albilene area where they actually get blizzards..LOLsure would love about 2 ft of snow today...he heeee)I divided moms crammed lil aloe into 4 plants wth roots all are perking back to life but a lil one which if shows no signs of life in a week will dip in rooting hormone.so sounds like yours is mature....so have you got a flower stalk on yours ever in the fall/winter time by chance?
post soon...ya got my curiosity now bout that aloe