Rodden, I like "Ellen," thanks for sharing a picture. :) She looks like rather happy in your office. She looks like she's starting to form that "swiss cheese" look. I wish I knew people like you do, I'd love to have a pot like that! I like how she put what looks like coffee mug handles around the pot. You're welcome about the information. A lot of people's plant knowledge just comes from trial and error and finding "cheap" ways to do things lol. I'm forever getting soil or water somewhere where I didn't intend to. I've broken or damaged enough plants trying to "clean" them, so I just learned the Q-tip trick with AVs after a few failed attempts to remove excess water lol. We have a PUR water filter (the one you stick in your fridge). I use it for my plants mostly (they actually "drink" better water than we do, we don't drink enough water lol). I figure that's gotta be a good way to get a number of contaminants out of the tap water. I let it sit out overnight so it's not cold. I used to let my water sit out overnight, but I started thinking it'd probably be even better to give them the filtered water from our water filter. We buy a 3-pack of refill filters and they're $15 for 3. I think I go 3 months without changing them (they say you shouldn't go more than 2, but it's not like I'm using it every single day, I don't water my plants that often lol). The only plants I can think of that are sensitive to fluoride are 'Spider Plant' and Dracaenas. There may be more, I just can't think of any. I put a lot of perlite in my soil "mix," so I'm sure to clean the perlite real well before I mix it in with the Miracle Gro Cactus & Succulent soil. I've read somewhere that it contains a lot of fluoride (the perlite), so you want to rinse it real well before use to remove most of that excess fluoride before using it. I read something on the AV forum on GW about chloramine (not chlorine) that is harmful to AVs. It isn't a gas so it doesn't evaporate. I don't know if our filtration filters chloramine out, I'm hoping it does. I've seen pictures of AVs on that forum that gradually begin to yellow until it kills off the plant. I figure, better to be safe than sorry. Planto This post was edited by plantomaniac08 on Mon, Feb 24, 14 at 17:34

spiders are spiders.. mites are mites ... spider mites.. are NOT spiders.. they are mites ... one thing sucks the juice out of plants [mites].. the other preys on bugs [spiders] ... spiders do NOT harm plants .... see why one is bad.. and one is good ..???? i do NOT know.. but would be surprised if spiders dont eat mites ... and that is the lesson for today.. fully ID your problem.. so you can leave the good things .. and only attack the bad things ... but NEVER .. over-react ... had you waited a day or two.. to research them .. it would not have made a difference. ... if you do have scale... HORTICULTURAL oil is a recommended cure ... but that is not cooking oil ... so you might have been on the right track.. but used the wrong thing .. again, research ... [hort oil is VERY FINE ... while other oils are very heavy.. heavy ones MIGHT smother the plant .. but dont worry about that] the oil will smother the scale.. unfortunately.. they look the same.. dead or alive.. so we dont know ... what you did to them ... if anything ... my first thought.. is for you to compare ... the newest leaves coming out.. are they on those.. and then.. figure out the oldest leaves ... and i bet they are worse on those ... and if so .. i would simply tug off some of the older leaves .. no plant holds its leaves forever.. and early spring is a great time to remove some of the older.. weaker leaves .... they are probably the ones that are brittle.. and curling toward the trunk .... snip them.. if they dont release easily ... over the years.. you will learn how to recognize them.. and if you dont do it.. it will self prune them off soon enough ... my though is simply.. since they are covered in scale...??? .. to reduce your population.. by simply removing the old leaves ... if you can get rid of 50 to 75% of the problem.. thru some pruning.. why not??? am i to understand.. you made your own potting medium???? ken

HU, I also have an older (~30 years) ponytail palm that is getting too tall for my house, and has never had 'pups'. After reading through the comments, these are my (uneducated) thoughts. The pups/branches/heads seem to form at injury points or due to stress, maybe? When I'm ready to 'prune' mine, I'm going to try to make 4 small cuts evenly spaced around the 'stem' about 3' above the top of the soil, to see if I can get growth there, while keeping the top of the plant intact at least for a while. On second thought, I think I will start by making just one cut on the stem. Then, if that one is successful, make more cuts later, with the goal of eventually lopping off the top.

Some of your plants are old, but: * How old is your PTP and how long have you had it? An image of the plant and the pot it's in is pretty important. Maybe you could send me a message with an image or work on figuring out how to upload one. * If your plant is anywhere near 50 years old and has only been repotted twice, root congestion will have been taking a horrible toll on the plant's potential in terms of growth rate, vitality, and its ability to defend itself against disease pathogens and insect herbivory. * Did you really repot it (includes bare-rooting, root pruning, and a chance of soil) or did you simply pot up. If the later, root congestion is still robbing your plants of an extremely large fraction of its potential. * Do you fertilize regularly? with what? how often? Include NPK % of the fertilizer product, please. * The new pot does ave a drain hole, right? * How do you determine when it's time to water your plant? * Do you have a water softening system that uses salt as the exchange medium? If the soil you chose drains appropriately, lots of rain shouldn't be an issue. I have all sorts of succulents in pots and I don't need to do anything to protect them from long periods of rain, but the grow medium I use for succulents is designed to hold VERY little water between soil particles. THAT is the water that causes problems with root function and root health. Let's see your answers offer more insight into what might be going on, but an image is worth 1,000 words. Al