Hi Josh!!! Thank for the kind comments! This was a project that I kept putting off until I finally felt so bad looking at the massive roots in this container. It is a great feeling to know it is free of all of the congestion and the huge roots circling around the container. I feel better and I am sure the tree is very happy now that it can continue to grow and thrive in the same home, but with more room to grow. So nice to see you and thank you for your comments! ;-) Uaskigyrl... Thank you ! I love this tree too! Take Care, Laura

PT's habit is to shed older leaves, but root congestion increases the number of leaves shed and decreases the number of leaves the plant is able to retain. (The condition of) tight roots tends to concentrate most of the growth at or near apices (growing tips of stem or branches). Potting up will partially relieve some of the stress of root congestion, but ideally, you would get some help repotting and do a repot and move the plant to a larger pot. You could roll the pot on it's side over a plastic tarp in the garage & go at it there, then repot it into a very fast (draining) soil. If it's suffering from root congestion, there really is no remedy other than 'uncongesting' the roots. Are you sure the split in the bark isn't just a fissure that comes naturally with aging? How did you add magnesium? Epsom salts? Generally, adding single nutrients or products aimed at supplying single nutrients is much more likely to end up being a limitation than a 'boost'. There is no substitute for the combination of a soil you can water correctly and a sound nutritional supplementation program Al

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.

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