Question
ponytail bulb colony
Hello Darlene:
I saw a question/answer that you gave to someone who had a similar question that I do. I just want perfect clarification so that I do not hurt my ponytail palm bulbs.
I have two "normal" looking plants of this kind with one trunk as many are sold. They are doing fine and growing normally.
I have a "third" one, that I am very sure is ponytail, elephants-foot, whathaveyou- only it appears to be a collection of 8 small spherical "bulbs" about an inch in diameter, with their own respective thin leaves shooting off. They are clustered together, and when I repotted them from the original, they stuck together, so I treated them as one.
In your response to the previous question, you encouraged that person to separate each "bulb" and repot them in their own pots with 2 extra inches. Is this appropriate for my colony?
It appears that they were sold to be together, but if the potential for them to grow to their fullest is being hampered, I would very much like to separate them.
Thank you,
Clare
AnswerClare,
Yes this is appropriate for your plant. It is definitely a ponytail or elephants-foot palm. The Latin name is beaucarnea recurvata. I highly recommend that you separate them and pot them up in a mix of half potting soil and half sand. You can buy play sand at Lowes or Home Depot or any Lumber yard. You should use 2-4 inch pots with 1 plant per pot. Keep your plants in the sunniest location possible and let them get dry between waterings. These are more of a desert type plant than a tropical so you want to treat them more like a cactus than a tropical plant, lots of sun and keep them fairly dry. Good luck.
Darlene
