How To Grow And Care For Ponytail Palm Indoors | Gardener's Path

Beaucarnea recurvata

Have you been wanting to grow a palm in your home, but wondering if you could keep up with the misting and watering required to satisfy the typical palm’s need for moisture?

If so, here’s a plant for you!

The ponytail palm, Beaucarnea recurvata, has tropical-style foliage, but doesn’t require a damp environment to thrive.

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In this article, we’ll introduce you to this unique plant, and provide guidance for its cultivation indoors.

Here’s what’s in store:

What You’ll Learn

Quick Look

How to Grow

Where to Buy

Maintenance

Propagation

Pests and Disease

Evergreen ponytail palm, Beaucarnea recurvata, is not actually a palm, but a succulent in the Asparagaceae family that also includes agave and asparagus.

It is suited to outdoor cultivation in warm, dry regions of USDA Hardiness Zones 10 and 11. But it is also an exceptionally attractive, easy-care houseplant in all zones.

Native to semi-desert locales of southeastern Mexico and Central America, the most noteworthy features of this species are its caudex and its recurved evergreen foliage.

A caudex is an enlargement at the base of a woody plant’s trunk that stores water.

It’s the signature trait of what are called “caudiciform” plants. This growth habit is the basis for ponytail palm’s other names, bottle palm tree and elephant-foot tree.

There may be one or more trunks with branches from which serrated “recurved” leaves sprout.

Quick Look

Common name(s): Bottle palm, elephant-foot tree, ponytail palm

Plant type: Evergreen succulent

Hardiness (USDA Zone): 10-11 (outdoors)

Native to: Central America, southeastern Mexico

Bloom time / season: Spring and summer (rarely indoors)

Exposure: Bright, indirect light

Soil type: Loose, sandy, well-draining

Soil pH: 6.0-7.5, slightly acidic to slightly alkaline

Time to maturity: 10 years

Mature size: 4-8 feet tall by 3-5 feet wide

Best uses: Houseplant, specimen planting, patio pot

Taxonomy

Order: Asparagales

Family: Asparagaceae

Genus: Beaucarnea

Species: Recurvata

This characteristic backward, downward bend gives the foliage a fountain-like display that resembles a ponytail. The leaves range from one to five feet in length.

In nature, trees may reach a mature height of 30 feet tall. Potted, they may grow as tall as eight feet, but are more likely to top out at around four.

B. recurvata is a dioecious plant, meaning that there are both males and females. The males have cream-colored flowers, and those of the females are more pinkish.

When mature, this species has the potential to flower. However, it may not happen for 10 or 20 years.

It seems that the larger the caudex grows, the more likely the plant is to flower. After it blooms the first time, it will likely do so two to three times per growing season thereafter.

Unfortunately, because caudex growth is restricted, container plants are unlikely to flower.

In addition to the ponytail palm, there are 12 other species in the Beaucarnea genus.

Three of these are similar to our subject species: the stiff-leaved B. stricta, the slender, bluish-leaved B. gracilis, and the red ponytail palm, B. guatemalensis.

B. recurvata was just another wild tree in Mexico and points south, when it undoubtedly caught the attention of plant hunters in the 1800s, who brought it back to Europe for botanical study and development.