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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.
Image Credit:
Renata.Ka/Shutterstock
Botanical Name
Beaucarnea recurvata
Sun Exposure
Full Sun
Partial Sun
Soil pH
Neutral
Flower Color
White
Yellow
Plant Type
Houseplants
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.

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. 

Pests and Problems

  • 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 loves nature, stargazing, and gardening so it’s not surprising that she and The Old Farmer’s Almanac found each other. She leads digital content for the Almanac website, and is also a certified master gardener in the state of Indiana.

Read more from Catherine Boeckmann

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Comments

<span>Kaye Deacon</span> Tue, 02/27/2018 - 21:06
can you cut off and plant the side shoots of the parent plant that present on older palms. what care is needed. section found did little to provide much info on anything other than planting. Found the answer tks a lot kaye
<span>Allan Eustace.</span> Sun, 02/25/2018 - 04:56
Is it possible to grow this plant by a cutting.
<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 02/26/2018 - 11:53

It would be a bad idea to remove the main stem of a ponytail palm, but occasionally, adult plants will produce "babies" or "pups," which are small offshoots stemming from the base of the plant. These can be removed and grown into new plants with the right care. When they're at least 4 inches tall, the pups can be cut from the mother plant and replanted. When you make the cut, make sure you use a sterile knife, and dust the pup's cut wound with rooting hormone if possible. Then, place it in slightly moistened soil (a succulent mix, ideally) and wait. Do not overwater.

 <span>Jenny</span> Sat, 02/24/2018 - 10:36
I have a ponytail palm that I’ve had for almost 30 years. Got it from my mother. It is in a pot and lives outside. Very unusual but this winter we had several continuous days of below freezing weather. The palm was covered but apparently not good enough. The palm oozed a white foamy sap. The fronds are all brown. It could be my imagination but the stem feels a little soft. The bulb still feels hard and firm. All these years, the ponytail has been so hardy that it is distressing to see its current condition. Is there anything I should do to help it (beyond making sure to bring it inside if it is going to freeze in the future)?
<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 02/26/2018 - 12:22

It does sound like your ponytail palm has suffered from a freeze, unfortunately. It's really a toss up as to whether it will be able to recover or not, but what you can do it to try to keep it in a warmer place for the remainder of the season and be careful not to overwater it. The brown leaves are dead and can be cut off. It's possible that new leaves will grow in the spring. 

 <span>Ron Stewart</span> Wed, 01/24/2018 - 08:43
Ponytail Palms are quite common and do well outdoors here in southwest Florida. Another common name for Beaucarnea recurvata that I have heard often is Whoville palm because it looks like it came right out of a Dr. Seuss illustration.
<span>Patty</span> Mon, 11/20/2017 - 11:30
I know how often to water, but how MUCH water do you use?
<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 11/20/2017 - 14:05

While we can't give an exact amount because it depends on the size of your pot and the amount of soil in it, the rule of thumb for watering is to "water deeply, but infrequently." This means that you should water until the water starts to come out of the pot's drainage holes. If the soil is particularly dry or porous, let the pot sit in any water that comes out of the bottom for a little while so that the soil can soak up the water that went straight through. Once you've allowed the pot to sit in the excess water for 10 or so minutes, dump out the dish of excess water.

 <span>Ruby Cade</span> Tue, 08/15/2017 - 05:13
I have 2 pony tail plants and I live in south Mississippi. Would it be wise to plant my plants out side?
<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Tue, 08/15/2017 - 14:22

Ponytail palms require consistently warm temperatures and low moisture. In the US, they can survive outdoors in Zones 9 and warmer, but only where it's also quite dry, such as in the Southwest. We imagine it would get too humid and wet in Mississippi for a ponytail palm to thrive, so it would probably be best to keep yours potted. Consult a nearby Cooperative Extension service for local advice.