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Ponytail Palm Care Guide: How to Grow This Easy, Long-Lived Houseplant

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
Houseplants
Sun Exposure
Full Sun
Part Sun
Soil pH
Neutral
Flower Color
White
Yellow
Hardiness Zone
9
10
11

A Beginner-Friendly Guide to Growing and Caring for Ponytail Palms Indoors

Written By: Catherine Boeckmann Executive Digital Editor and Master Gardener

Ponytail palms, or elephant foot palms, are unique-looking, long-lived indoor plants that thrive on benign neglect. They are straightforward to grow—provided 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 palm. 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 stump, 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 of eastern Mexico, the plant can reach up to 30 feet in height. However, ponytail palms grown in gardens as landscape plants typically don’t reach more than 10 feet tall. 

Kept indoors, they are rarely taller than 4 feet. However, as Susan Mahr of the University of Wisconsin-Madison explains, “In 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 your ponytail palm 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.”

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

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Planting

Choosing a Growing Medium and a Pot

  • Use a fast-draining potting mix, such as one for cactuses and succulents. If you already have potting mix, sand, and perlite on hand, you can create your own desert mixture using equal amounts of each
  • 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 moisture for long.
  • Use a clay pot if possible; the porous material will absorb some of the water, drying out the growing medium more quickly (a good thing for cactuses and succulents).

Growing

How to Care for Ponytail Palms

  • Ponytail palms prefer bright indirect light.
  • Keep growing medium fairly dry. Water from spring through fall, allowing the top inch or two to dry out completely before rewatering. During the winter, water only occasionally.
  • To water, soak the potting mix 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 cactus/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°F / 10°–13°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—a 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. 

Gardening Products

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 practices appropriately. They can also indicate that the plant is getting too much direct light and not enough water.

Wit and Wisdom

  • The plant’s unusual shape and coloration have granted it another strange nickname—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. 

Houseplant Guides
About The Author
Catherine Boeckmann

Catherine Boeckmann

Executive Digital Editor and Master Gardener

Catherine Boeckmann is the Executive Digital Editor of Almanac.com, the website companion of The Old Farmer's Almanac. She covers gardening, plants, pest control, soil composition, seasonal and moon c...
Read More from Catherine Boeckmann

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Comments

<span>Susan Houle</span> Sun, 10/05/2014 - 11:22
Hi, just a quick question about how to water my ponytail plant, water from the top , or set it in a small bowl and let it absorb water from bottom ? Thanks
<span>Dee Mace</span> Sun, 08/30/2015 - 12:41
My directions say 1 cup water every 2 weeks. If pot is non draining, drain water back out after 20 to 30 min. Fertilize every 2 months. They live anywhere in home environment, but they love indirect light an hour a day. Temp. Never below 40 degree f.
<span>Ellenmarieb</span> Fri, 09/19/2014 - 14:13
My 26 year old ponytail was repotted 6 months ago. It is outside on a covered lanai in Florida. Can it stay out all winter? It occasionally goes to 32 degrees. Can I just cover it? The leaves now hug the stem instead of standing out. New leaves are just forming and are standing out a bit-is it perhaps recovering? Could it be in a pot that is too big? Any help & advice are appreciated! Thanks!
<span>Kajunsunshine</span> Wed, 09/24/2014 - 19:12
I've had mine for many yrs and also live I FL. I only cover it during cold temps and water less during this time. I had new roots come out of the trunk about a foot above the soil. I now have three. This happened when I repotted it. Its on my carpot and I let the soil get a bit dry before watering it.
<span>Melinda Stalcup</span> Sun, 09/14/2014 - 22:02
my pony tail plam is 18 years old and beautiful, but is only about 2feet tall, I have it in a medium pot, the pot is just full of root, what am I doing wrong to get this plant to grow around 5foot tall, please help..Thank you.
<span>Rocky Hoffman</span> Mon, 11/10/2014 - 16:59
If the pot is full of root it needs a bigger pot and it will get bigger. That's with any plant that out grows the pot. It has no room left for it to grow. A few mouths ago I bought a pony tail and from that one plant I have four more in different pots from the one plant and they are growing really fast.
<span>Brian Seibert</span> Mon, 10/20/2014 - 19:50
To get the Ponytail Palm to grow bigger you must repot it to at least a 5 to 8 gallon bucket.
<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 09/15/2014 - 14:28

Hi Melinda,

If you want a bigger ponytail palm you need to repot it in a bigger container so that the roots will have space to grow. It is recommended to repot the plant every year if you want it to grow taller and bigger.

 <span>Tiffany M</span> Wed, 12/10/2014 - 14:56
I like the size of my palm and would like to keep it that way. Would it be okay to just prune the roots and repot it back into the same sized pot?
<span>Noemi</span> Fri, 09/12/2014 - 15:42
Hi, I have had my ponytail palm for a few months now and the new growth doesn't seem to want to separate....the new shoots grow out but for some reason are all stuck together in the middle of some of the shoots. They look like a bunch of separate long leaves that come back together near the tip and then open up again...I don't know how to separate them without tearing the leaves, but they seem to be dying inside of the clumped part....Is there something specific I am doing incorrectly? It doesn't seem under- or over-watered and gets a lot of sun... Thank you.