Ponytail Palm tree

This is a plant that I bought from Costco about five years ago. Their garden center is easily one of the best that I have seen; the plants and trees are all in prime health and the pricing is always competitive for similar plants. My wife and I fell in love with the plant and the planter at first sight and have never regretted our impulse to buy.

This sits in our family room by the south-facing window and receives filtered sunlight round the year (courtesy of the net curtains) and its health and well-being is visible by the steady growth of its leaves and their luscious green color. We periodically trim the leaves from the bottom to keep the length within check and this keeps them looking beautiful and healthy, Other than this, the only other maintenance that I do to this plant is pull off the dying leaves as they turn yellow or brown.

The technical information on this plant is (source Wikipedia):

Beaucarnea recurvata (elephant's foot, ponytail palm) is a species of plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz and San Luis Potosí in eastern Mexico. Despite its common name, it is not closely related to the true palms (Arecaceae). It was discovered in Mexico by a Frenchman in 1870, becoming popular in Europe and worldwide as an ornamental plant.

This plant is also called an "Elephant's Foot Palm" and is a very low maintenance plant to grow indoors. My schedule for care is as follows:

Watering: on a weekly basis; it took me a while to understand the watering needs of the plant as initially I tended to over water this. However, the unglazed pot came to my rescue and I realized my mistake when the pot started to seep the excess water. Normally I check the dampness of the soil to determine if watering is needed, but there is a beautiful layer of white marble stones on the soil that I don’t want to disturb and spoil.

Fertilizer: this is done usually on a monthly basis using a standard plant food available in stores; if I miss a month, I don’t fret but during a year I try to get at least 9 fertilizations to keep my plants happy and healthy.

I have been tempted to propagate the plant by cutting off the one shoot on the stem and root it, but have yet to muster the courage to do so. The plant is still in the original pot that I bought it in and because the roots don’t have much place to grow, it hasn’t grown any taller; just the leaves keep growing longer and more beautiful!!!