蜜桃恋人

How to Care for Ponytail Palms

Poneytail palm indoors by a window. The Beaucarnea Recurvata, also known as Ponytail Palm, or Nolina is a houseplant with a swollen thick brown stem and the long narrow curly, green leaves flow up from this base.
Photo Credit
Renata.Ka/Shutterstock
Botanical Name
Beaucarnea recurvata
Plant Type
Houseplant
Sun Exposure
Full Sun
Part Sun
Soil pH
Neutral
Flower Color
White
Yellow
Hardiness Zone
9
10
11

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Growing Ponytail Palm Houseplants: Watering, Lighting, Repotting, and Pests

Catherine Boeckmann

Ponytail palms, or elephant foot palms, are unique-looking, long-lived indoor plants that thrive on benign neglect. They are straightforward to grow鈥攑rovided that you don’t overwater them! Here’s how to grow and care for a ponytail palm in your home.

About Ponytail Palms

Despite its name and palm-like appearance, the ponytail palm is not a true 鈥減alm.鈥 In fact, it is more closely related to desert plants in the Agave and Yucca genera (such as Joshua trees).

The typical ponytail palm consists of a large, domed 鈥渟tump,鈥 which tapers off into a thinner stem. As the plant ages, one or more rosettes of long, green, leathery leaves develop from the top of the stem. Indoors, the leaves can reach up to 3 feet long, but outdoors, they may be double that length.

In its native environment (eastern Mexico), the entire plant has been known to reach up to 30 feet in height! However, ponytail palms grown in gardens as landscape plants don’t usually reach more than 10 feet tall. 

Kept indoors, they are rarely taller than 4 feet. However, as explains, 鈥淚n containers, ponytail palms will grow slower than if in the ground, and the plants will remain small if kept in a small pot. They can go for many years before needing to be repotted. Moving it to a larger pot will give it room to grow in both height and girth. They can be very long-lived and can easily outlive their owners. However, older plants may be difficult to manage because of sheer size and weight if not kept on the smaller size.鈥

Care of this plant is generally simple; the most common difficulty is adapting your watering habits to its needs!

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Planting

Choosing Soil and a Pot

  • Use a fast-draining soil, such as a cacti and succulent potting mix. If you already have potting soil, sand, and perlite on hand, you can create your own desert soil mixture: Mix 1 part potting soil, 1 part perlite, and 1 part sand. 
  • Select a pot with a hole in the bottom so that excess water can be drained off. Ponytail palms do not like to sit in moist soil for very long.
  • Use a clay pot if possible; the porous material will absorb some of the water, drying out the soil more quickly (a good thing for cacti and succulents).

Growing

How to Care for Ponytail Palms

  • Ponytail palms prefer to have as much light as possible, so place the plant in a bright location. Bright, indirect sunlight is best.
  • Keep soil fairly dry. Water from spring through fall, allowing the top inch or two of soil to dry completely before re-watering. During the winter, only water occasionally.
  • To water, soak the soil and allow the excess water to drain through the bottom of the pot into a dish. Let the pot sit in the dish for several minutes, then dump out any remaining water in the dish. 
  • Fertilize in the spring with a cacti/succulent fertilizer and bring into a brighter room for the summer months. 
  • Average room temperature is acceptable for most of the year, but to replicate the natural dormancy cycle, keep the plant slightly cooler in the winter (50-55掳F / 10-13掳C).
  • Don’t let the plant sit too close to cold windows at night during winter, as freezing temperatures can severely damage it.

Repotting a Ponytail Palm

  • Ponytail palms will remain small if kept in a small pot. They can go for many years before needing to be repotted. Repotting every other year at the most is all a ponytail palm needs.
  • Moving the plant to a larger pot will allow it to grow in height and girth. However, older plants may become challenging to manage due to their sheer size and weight if they are not kept at a smaller size.
  • When selecting a new pot, pick one large enough to leave about an inch or so of space between the ponytail palm’s trunk and the pot’s rim. 
  • Note: Use caution when handling a ponytail palm, as its leaves have tiny serrated edges.

Harvesting

Propagation

  • Rarely, a ponytail palm may produce an offset鈥攁 tiny baby plant that stems from the base of the adult plant. These can be cut off at the base when they reach at least 4 inches in height and planted in a succulent potting mix. Before planting, allow the cut wound to heal, then apply some rooting hormone (available online and in nurseries) to encourage the offset to root. 
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Wit and Wisdom

  • The plant’s unusual shape and coloration have granted it another strange nickname: the Elephant’s Foot Palm.
  • Are ponytail palms poisonous to cats? While the leaves of a ponytail palm are not toxic to feline (or canine) companions, their foliage does have abrasive edges that could irritate a pet’s mouth, so we suggest keeping the plant out of reach. 

Pests/Diseases

  • Overwatering can result in stem rot. If you withhold watering, the plant may be able to internally remedy the problem. Signs of stem rot include yellowing leaves and a caudex (the plant’s base and stem) that is soft or squishy. 
  • Spider mites and scale insects may find their way to the leaves, but can be dealt with by rubbing a cloth of dish soap and water on the stems. Spider mites are evidenced by the presence of spider-like webbing on the plant.
  • Brown tips on leaves can be a sign of overfertilizing or underwatering, so adjust your husbandry practices appropriately. They can also indicate that the plant is getting too much direct sunlight and too little water.
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About The Author

Catherine Boeckmann

Catherine Boeckmann loves nature, stargazing, and gardening so it鈥檚 not surprising that she and The Old Farmer鈥檚 蜜桃恋人 found each other. She leads digital content for the 蜜桃恋人 website, and is also a certified master gardener in the state of Indiana. Read More from Catherine Boeckmann
 

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Comments

Rosemary Mansfield (not verified)

5 years 4 months ago

What causes a long shoot of new leaves, about 12 inches before it fans out?

Robert (not verified)

5 years 4 months ago

My palm, which is usually kept indoors and has just had a new sprout/pup just above the big bowl base was fine until suddenly all the top leaves have collapsed and are a very light green. I have just moved the plant outside to get more light and will water tomorrow (every 10 days in Northern Thailand). Unfortunately we cannot post pics here

Rashelle Edwards (not verified)

5 years 4 months ago

Can I save my ponytail plant if i gave it too much water?? its been 3 days since i gave it water, i looked over and BAM, all her leaves have fallen down, if not off!!! Can i save her??

Eve (not verified)

5 years 5 months ago

I have a small, 1.5m ponytail palm that was happy in the summer but come winter, the leaves became very brittle, almost a lime-green color, and the caudex is hard and shriveled. I don鈥檛 want to over-water, but could it be too dry? Google is of little help since the diagnosis for ponytail problems seems always to be too wet! It was getting full sun and 1x/week water in a very dry zone 9a, even drier than Tucson (Johannesburg, South Africa!)

Update: just noticed it鈥檚 put out quite a few aerial roots, which your comment suggests it鈥檚 too dry, so I鈥檓 going to give it a deep watering. Nevertheless would be interested in the meaning of a shriveled caudex on these plants.

A shriveled caudex is indeed an indication of a thirsty plant! Try watering it a bit more often or watering it deeper鈥攊n other words, make sure that the soil gets properly soaked at each watering (but still allow it to dry out between waterings).

Note that if your area experiences a noticeable winter season, the plant could also just be going into seasonal dormancy, which means that it won’t need as much water as it does in spring/summer when it’s actively growing. Still, the trunk should have a fuller appearance, so find a watering schedule that brings the plant back to a healthy-looking state.

Teresa Ross (not verified)

5 years 5 months ago

How to separate the new ones that grow on the side

Vivian Hager (not verified)

5 years 5 months ago

Ok, many years ago I planted my Ponytail Palm in the ground and now it is 10 feet tall. Every now and then I pull the old /brown leaves/palms off the bottom on the plant. It survived many frost conditions we had in Florida. NOW I notice a little sprout coming out of the side of the trunk. What do I do with this new growth?

If this new sprout is growing from the very base of the tree, at ground level, then it is a 鈥減up鈥濃攊n other words, a baby ponytail palm.

If the new sprout is growing from the point where the wide base of the tree narrows, it is likely a new stem starting to form. This usually only happens when the tree is damaged and dies back to the wide base, though.

In either case, you can leave it alone if you’d like to have a two-stemmed tree or a little stand of palms… However, if you do leave it attached, note that the tree will spend energy growing the new stem or pup rather than on its original stem. If your goal is to have the tallest ponytail palm, I would recommend cutting off the new sprout.

Carole (not verified)

5 years 6 months ago

I have a ponytail palm that is 32 years old. I live in Rhode Island and keep it in the house during the winter and put it outside in the summer. This past winter I noticed that as the new grown is coming its turning brown and there more brown than normal for the leaves. It has never been repotted. I'm thinking of repotting but some advise would be great. Is my plant dying.