They fill out later

I have a pony tail palm that's about 2 feet tall and it has a small caudex too. I heard that the larger the pot the bigger the caudex but mine is in a large pot and so is yours. I've never seen a variegated one Bryan can you tell me where you got it? I have about 5 all green ones and each caudex is a little bit different. Hope this helps.

Hi, whilst I admit to not know much at all about PT Palms I'm just curious to ask what size pot that is for a 3ft plant...it's hard to tell from the pic? I have only ever seen small PT Palms for sale here (around 1ft max) and all had bulbous bases of say 4inch in diameter that almost filled the pot. What is the soil quality like, could it be that it needs better soil? I can see a few hangers on in the pot too and the dead fronds, are they the PTPalms?
Hope someone comes in to help you, this will bump it to the top again...good luck.
Gill.

It's a rooted cutting. It will take longer to grow a wide base. They are also more tender to cold.A z10 plant. And at that size sell for about $100
Which might account for never seeing one for sale in NorCal.

You should post it in the cactus and succulent forum here. Because I know that a while back they gave instructions on how to get Adeniums grown from cuttings to develop a fat base. Left to their own they never do like seed grown plants. So the experts there who grow many cutting plants to fat plant status could give you more details and how-to's.

Interesting...yours has a typical Beaucarnea recurvata trunk. Compare on the net to mine that has a striated trunk. Like two different plants.
I wonder if that's the recurvata vs guatamalense ?

There is an interesting story on those plants. There were lots of these plants that were brought into the US around 8 to 10 years ago from England. They were supposed to be tissue cultured and have never been sent over again. Plenty of people have noticed that after many years, they still don't get the same sized stems as the regular ones. I got about 50 of them at that time and put some in 7s and even 15s, and the best stem size if got is about 5 or 6 inches. It's funny about the previous question, some people have wondered what the true genetic material really was. I've heard the Guatemala plants have smaller stems, but I don't know what the truth on what these really are. I've been a little disappointed in these, but I love variegated plants so much, I just had to keep some of these around.

Here are a few of mine. If I can have two pics in a post, the second pic is the largest one that is just over four feet tall now.

I only got the one pic, here is the big one

Here is a pic of my Ponytail Palm. I got it 7 years ago and the caudex was about the size of a small marble with an overall plant height of about 3 or 4 inches. Now the caudex is about 4 1/2 - 5 in. at the widest part. The overall height from soil line to the top of arched 'fronds' is about 25 to 30 inches. The leaves/fronds (hmmm what are they called on a ponytail?) average about 5 to 6 1/2 feet long. I've had it in an 8 in. pot (inside dimension). When it goes out onto my porch next month, I will repot it into a larger pot. If I had planted it into a larger pot several years ago, I'm sure it would be a fair amount larger than it is now. I have purposely kept it in a smaller pot to slow the growth, though.

This post was edited by shenue on Fri, Apr 4, 14 at 12:04

I haven't seen a variegated ponytail palm. The pictures presented here all look so nice. They reminded me of the variegated Dracena which has broader leaves.
If they aren't difficult to grow, I'm been thinking of getting one too.

I have three ponytail palms which I grow in a pot and they must have been 6-7 years old now. I first bought them when they were tiny little babes measuring 6-8" from Walmart. Now they've grown to a little over 3 ft tall (very slow growth).

Did some of you who own this variegated variety purchase them online, or at your local nurseries?

I got mine locally. They cost quite a bit more then the all green,and one reason is they don't seem to be sold as small plants. 2' tall is what I see most often.
There must be at least two clones of VPP. One seems to be not B.recurvata and has a nice striated trunk,the other a brown conventional trunk and with more of a caudex. As I said,the striated is most likely B.guatamalensis.

The reason that you only see medium sized plants is because all of them were created at the same time. It seems like it has been about 8 years ago, but I just can't keep up with all the years any more. For me, I found them at a wholesale nursery in south Florida. They had got them directly from the maker in the UK.