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

Fabulous now that we can see Cher in all her glory! Oh my, Maria, you took the leaf of faith, Cher looks great! I bet with the trim and repot, her elegant ballerina like figure (caudex ) will plump up a bit. She looks very elegant with her long slender look! I love that we can now see her in full :) You must be so happy to have accomplished this! I found the same with Harry when I repotted him, most roots where on the outside. Having only chopped Harry's heads off once... Here was my thinking: Cut them off in fall, allow him to sit in a low light area and water once a month at most. Let him gather strength for spring. Come March he had new sprouts starting. At first they were little bumps, then fully fledged sprouts and then by summer, he was on his way to his new stout look. I think late fall may be best as you will want to stop watering her due to her having no leaves, plus this will give her time to re-establish her roots between now and then. Harry did fine with watering him once a month in winter. I only started watering him once a few of his sprouts were about an inch long and green. If you look at the photo above of him with his heads cut off and the one before it, you will notice that his caudex is plump in the one with his heads and then it is more wrinkly in the one with the new sprouts. We do this same routine each winter. He looks dehydrated early spring from the lack of water in the winter but by spring he's re-hydrated and plumped up. Have you thought about how much you want to cut off? I look forward to the next update on Cher!

Kate - I think it's the right choice to leave the brown ends and roots until spring. Just discard the completely dry leaves to keep the plant tidy and let the drying ones take care of themselves. It's riskier to repot now and while the palm isn't in optimal health there doesn't seem any danger of it dying. Lots of time left in winter to research root pruning, getting the right tools, and maybe even considering a better mix. In spring you will probably need sturdy chopsticks (I like metal ones), pruners (sharp, double bladed kind), hose sprayer, and a helping hand to do the job. There is a great deal of helpful threads in the Houzz/Gardenweb Container Forum about this topic. Lots of people in this forum frequent that one too and are very experienced growers. =)

FWIW A) worm castings provide very little in terms of nutrition, and used in any volume (in containers) they add to excess water retention. B) The problem could very well be a nutritional issue, especially if most of the leaf damage is affecting older leaves. Reason: Some nutrients are mobile in the plant (N,P,K,Mg), the rest are considered immobile or nearly so. The mobile nutrients can be moved from one location in the plant to another in order to fuel growth of new organs (leaves/ stems/ roots), while the immobile nutrients are locked into existing tissues. It is almost always the case that container media cannot break down fast enough to provide for all of a plant's nutritional needs, which creates deficiencies, even in new/ fresh plantings. When these deficiencies arise, the plant robs mobile nutrients from existing organs, mostly older leaves, which results in the plant recognizing the now compromised 'donor' leaves as a liability, which causes the plant (a shedding organism) to rid itself of the liability by shedding the leaves. C) PTs are very tolerant of droughty conditions. That is not to say they like/ prefer to be allowed to dry down completely, but drying down completely would be the lesser of two evils when the 'other' evil would be watering at intervals too short.. Ideally, you would be flushing the soil thoroughly when you water, and waiting until the soil is nearly but not completely dry to water again. IF you have been watering in sips because you think the soil is too water-retentive and are trying to avoid risking the specter of root rot, your grow medium is likely inappropriately water-retentive, not to mention the fact that watering in sips ensures dissolved solids (salts) in your tapwater and/or fertilizer solution remains/ builds up in the soil to the point where water uptake becomes difficult for the plant. A high level of salts in the soil can actually reverse the process of osmosis and pull water OUT of cells by exactly the same mechanism that curing salts pulls water from meats like ham/ bacon/ sausage. Moisture levels near the top of the soil column are relatively inconsequential. What is important is the level of moister at the bottom of the pot. I'll leave you with something I wrote about using a "tell". The "tell" will provide you with the information you need to determine appropriate watering intervals. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al