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Florida Gardening

Pony tail palm top frozen dead

bea (zone 9a -Jax area)

last year

This last severe freeze we had in north Fal was devasting for my plants including my 50 year old ponytail. The entire growing area died. The next morning all the leaves had started turning brown and a week later the entire tops fell off. The top around 6” or so are soft. I'm hoping the trunk is alive and will eventually sprout new tops.

My question is should I cut off that soft part or let it be?

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Comments (3)

dirtygardener
last year
Leave it for now. Usually, they will come back from the trunk and make a multi-stemmed trunk. If it's been there 50 years, it's been through some freezes. Scrape the very bottom with your fingernail and see if there is any green. If so, then keep making little scrapes up until you don't see green anymore. If there is green at the bottom, it will probably come back.
bea (zone 9a -Jax area)
Original Author
last year
Thanks Deb. That That’s what we were thinking too.

BTW it hasn’t lived there for 50 years. IT IS 50 years old. I got it as a tiny plant with the base the size of an eggg about 50 years ago when we lived up north where is was too cold to plant so it luved in a progressively larger pot. We then brought it with us when we moved here and planted it about 9 years ago. It did fine until this year because the amount of cold nights my area gets it can handle just fine. This cold was exceptional in that the 20s lasted almost all night for 3 nights ibstead of our usual 1-2 hours.
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Welcome to the forum Nev. I can only help a bit but the pony tail is Nolina recurvata. It is not in the palm family but rather belongs in the lily family. I want to say you could treat it like you would some of the yuccas that get the big flower spike when you remove it and I think the pups can be removed too but, I prefer to not mislead you and hope you have enough to go on one of the many other forums at Garden Web and find some experienced help. I have some but nothing at this stage. Sorry I couldn't help more.
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Ponytail palms are really good at handling damage. Mine was really badly damaged by scale (I mean really bad), so bad that I had to strip off every leaf except for the very middle leaves. These leaves were leaning over and could not even support itself so I had to tape them for a month. Now its slowly growing back scale free and the new leaves can finally support itself. Just goes to show how willing they are to grow. As long as its respouting, its far from dead and just handle it as you would normally, water on warm days and keep it in a nice sunny spot. Some fertilizer would really help too. Good luck!
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They can usually take about 18 degrees if they are established and in the ground, in a pot maybe 22-24 degrees for a short duration. They are also better off in a dryer cold than a wet one. If the foilage is all brown I would remove it. I have 2 of them about 4 ft tall also in pots and about 6 of them I have been growing since they were suckers.
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Ha, Well I joined gardenweb in 2012 when I was 13 mostly for stupid pond questions. Then somehow ventured out to this Forum and asked stupid plant questions. I refuse to look at most of my old posts and I feel bad for the people who had to deal with me! Though, I'll probably be saying the same thing down the road. Thus makes me 16. I'd have alot more things and Such if I was 'allowed' to. So I'm pretty limited to the things I 'can' purchase. Instead of a 20 gallon fish tank it would be a 55, my pond wouldn't be 60 gallons but 1,000, I'd probably have alot more plants and I'd have zebra finches. Though free food is nice. Thanks asleep! Looks so sad.
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carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
last year
I wouldn't rush to trim it either.

Time will tell...

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