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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

<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 05/18/2015 - 11:03

Hi Sherri,

It's best to put your plant in a plastic pot first and then put the plastic pot into the cast iron pot. Be careful when watering as the cast iron pot doesn't have any drainage holes. Let the soil dry out between waterings.

 <span>Dave08014</span> Thu, 05/14/2015 - 06:24
I've had my Ponytail for 5 or 6 years, it's a double bulb. It's in a pot with no drain hole :-( and in my garden window which faces North. It gets water when I think about it like every other month. I go away for the winter (4-5 months) house temp is set at 55 degrees and it gets watered maybe once. It looks great and seems happy. After reading about the Ponytail, I'm going to separate the bulbs (after my cactus mix arrives) and set them outside with my Christmas Cactus. Great page, I like all the comments!!!
<span>Lisa T</span> Mon, 04/27/2015 - 02:07
I live in Wisconsin, have a ponytail plant that is about 25 yrs old, and close to 9 ft. tall. It's broken the side of it's pot out again for a 3rd time,last time we put it in a big heavy duty plastic laundry type tub with handles. It sits outside all summer & bring it in for fall/winter. We broke the top off a couple yrs ago trying to get it inside (it's HEAVY!) and it resprouted 2 plants at the top! If we attempt to repot it, we can't get a bigger pot than what it's in now, and if we could find a bigger pot, it wouldn't fit thru the door. Can we repot it in the same size pot and keep it alive? It's got several cracks in the pot it's in and they are getting bigger. The plant is a monster, at this point we'd LOVE to find someone with a big house that could keep it thriving. (We have a small home, it's kept on a small back semi heated porch in the winter) It took a winch in the garage rafters to get it out of the pot last time. Can we repot in the same size pot, cut roots, etc., and have it survive? I really hate to lose this plant due to not being able to repot it in a bigger pot. Darn it. Any suggestions? The thing is beautiful. I thought I was buying a spike for deco in a geranium plant one summer and it developed the cute little bulb so I wintered it over indoors and well...this is what I have now!! Whew.
<span>Jules 1</span> Sat, 05/02/2015 - 11:29
Lisa, maybe we should trade plants. My poor little ponytail has been struggling since day 1. I've tried more water, less water, more light, less light, bigger pot etc...and the plant is barely hanging on. I hate to give up on it, but it looks awful. I'm also from Wisconsin.
<span>Jeff Shehan</span> Tue, 05/05/2015 - 18:07
My ponytail is the same way. I can't get it to grow.
<span>Phoenix65</span> Fri, 04/17/2015 - 17:11
I have a Pony Tail Palm that's about 3yrs old. It's about 18 inches tall. The new ponies don't come out near the soil, but at the top. I just repotted it about a week ago. I want to take ponies off to start them. How should I do it to get them to root.
<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Tue, 04/21/2015 - 16:27

You can cut the shoot from your palm and dip the bottom in rooting hormone. Then plant in a pot with fresh soil and place the pot in a sunny window. Let the soil dry out between waterings.

 <span>Sherryl Whitney</span> Thu, 03/05/2015 - 18:55
I have a ponytail palm approximately 26yrs old it has been repotted a few times over the years and was always pretty low maintenance. I used to live in Florida with it and it would go between inside and screened patio depending on weather. I moved to Tennessee almost two years ago and this winter it looks awful, the green top is the smallest I've ever seen it, New growth dies as it emerges. I'm thinking it's lack of light, it is in the window it gets the most sun but my tree is real probably over five feet and so it doesn't get Sun from above. I'm thinking I need a light for it for the winter but I'd like some suggestions. It is almost spring but it's still showing here.
<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 03/09/2015 - 10:38
For lighting--the plants like direct sun, but for indirect light, it needs to be bright (it can tolerate lower levels, but does better in brighter). Grow lights specifically for plants, and set at a proper distance, might make your plant happier. Give it several hours of light per day; however, you might ask a garden nursery if it would do better with a period of darkness each day to rest, just as it would have in its natural environment. Some plants are sensitive to the number of hours of light that they receive, and do not do well under continuous light.
<span>Jeff Shehan</span> Sat, 03/07/2015 - 13:59
I'm pretty much having the same problem with my plant. The new growth turns brown