If I brought my ponytail palms inside, none of the leaves would survive. One of my cats goes bonkers around them and will stop at nothing to get to them, HaHa! She is relentless and stubborn about it. This is why they have to hibernate for the winter in my unheated garage. About a week ago, I was out there and brushed up against their leaves and she heard them. For the rest of the night, she sat by the door to the garage crying to get out there, even though she never goes outside and knows she's not allowed. I've since planted some cat grass and catnip for her to chew on all she wants; once they finally grow large enough, that is. She's my little assistant gardener, and just HAS to be involved whenever I'm working on my plants. As for ponytails with long curly leaves, I suspect that they do this when they're grown in shaded indirect light. They grow longer and etiolated in the lower light levels. This doesn't appear to harm them any, seeing as how they still look very green and healthy. Mine go outdoors once the weather warms up, and they stay out there almost all year long. During that time, they get full, direct sunlight shining down on them from sunrise to sunset. Of my two largest ponytail palms, the larger one seems to have longer leaves that hang down lower. The other has leaves that curve inwards. I love the way each of them look. I plan on moving them along with almost everything else, back outdoors over the weekend. For where I live, it appears that the bitter cold days of winter are behind us. Now comes spring, along with its thunderstorms.

In my experience, pony tail palms are really sensitive to too much water and/or having too much mulch near their trunks. Have you mulched them recently? Have they gotten more rain than they need? That might leave them vulnerable to bugs/slugs. I had one in a pot for several years and put it out into the yard about a year ago. One of the three stems went great guns. It's four-feet high now, from six inches. The other two did not like their conditions and I think both have died. I do think they're really sensitive to getting too wet or having mulch too close to their trunks/being planted too deep.

What part of the RR/Austin area are you moving to? The winter lows are moderated nearest the downtown area and nearby neighborhoods due to a small urban heating effect on calm, cold nights. I can't say I've seen any ponytail palms in the ground in the Austin area. Without winter protection, I doubt they would last too long in the ground; but one could always try. There are a few good sized Queen palms planted near Taco Cabanas at two locations: south of the lakes downtown & some on highway 79 neat Redbud lane. A cold winter could certainly kill them without protection, but if they are near a building facing south and have some added heat, they can do alright at least for a few years. I have one in front of my home for 3.5 years. I planted it as a 7 gallon palm from HD that was perhaps 6 feet to the tallest frond. I've put C9 Christmas lights (w/o a sheet or tarp to trap the heat) on it to protect the trunk and bud from the winter. The coldest it has seen was 17 degrees for a low temp. Some tips were a little brown on the fronds, but it didn't lose those fronds. It is now about 22 feet tall to the topmost frond and the trunk is about 1.5-2 feet in diameter at the base. Drip irrigation and fertilizer help a lot. I have some smaller ones in my backyard on the north side that were planted as 3 gals 2 years ago, they have handled the cold without any protection and are growing at a good rate. Others in my neighborhood have planted Queens in the past few years and they are doing well. They don't cost very much at these small sizes, and seem to grow pretty well, so you might try them as an experiment. These queen palms might be a slightly different variety compared to those from Florida as the Texas varieties seem more robust, but perhaps that is just due to the soil and nutrients available. If you can find them, there are hybrids between the Butia and Queen (and some other combos as well) that should handle the worst of the cold weather better than a Queen and grow faster than a Butia. As other posters mentioned, if you want trunk forming palms, the California and Mexican Fan palms do well, with the California being much hardier to the cold and ice here. The Butia (Jelly) plams do fairly well except in heavy limestone and are cold tolerant. Sabal palms are also very tough. Windmill palms seem to grow well and are pretty cold hardy. Date palms seem to grow well, but a record cold outbreak cold kill almost any palm, with a trunk, as the all time low is below zero. Good luck.

If what you show in photo #3 is what came out of the current pot intact, then yes, it is severely pot bound. And contrary to what you may have read, no plant prefers to be pot bound. You would not find that happening under natural growing conditions so why should it be any different as a potted houseplant? It needs a slightly larger pot with a fast draining soil mix, something you would use for cacti and succulents. I grow almost exclusively in containers, indoors and out, and I rarely pay a lot of attention to the time of year when repotting, except for very temperate climate plants that go through a full dormancy - Beaucarnea do not. The root congestion and lack of any visible potting soil would indicate that a) the plant may be drying out too quickly/a need to bump up the watering frequency. Drought tolerant or not, plants need to be able to access moisture as their biology demands and there is nothing visible to support any degree of soil moisture under current growing conditions. And b) there is nothing to provide any nutrient supplementation. Plants grown in containers with a soil-less mix will require you to provide nutrients on a pretty regular schedule regardless of time of year. I seriously doubt it is any sort of disease and I see no signs of spider mites (stippling and webbing). It just needs repotting. And some fertilizer.