Hi there I have what I’ve been told is a ponytail palm. I rescued it from work in spring cause it was in a concrete type soil and I thought it could use love. I don’t have indoor plants so very little experience, I have outdoor Japanese Maples. We repotted it in Spring and it did well. It loved being outside all summer as our weather was good. Now indoors it’s failing I may have let it dry out too much. I’ve trimmed the crispy ends there is one branch that is soft and discoloured. I’ll attach pictures of how it is now, the root ball you will notice is oddly coloured that’s ok the soil was to the trunk in the office. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. thanks
Needs more light - a lot more light - for starters. Also, 'soft and discoloured' sounds more like overwatering than under.
There's nothing to worry about aside from the softness in the stem. Agree with Michael's comment in regard to watering. It's quite normal to have brown leaf tips. The one long brown leaf in the photo is at the bottom and so is most likely associated with normal leaf senescence. The plant does not appear to be light deprived; the leaves are of a good color.
Thanks you I’m sorry I’m not familiar with leaf senescence. The soil is typically dry and crumbly more than an inch. I just gave it a deeper watering normally it’s only like sips, I added more cause the trunk looked shrivelled up to me. So nothing to be done?
Senescence is a fancy way of saying aging: Plant senescence | Wikipedia. The softness in the stem may be a symptom of root rot. Does your container have drainage holes? If rot is the problem then you may want to repot after removing the affected roots.
It does have a drainage hole one but larger. Let’s see how it does. This is the first time I’ve added so much water. It’s typically very dry. The stem doesn’t feel soft only that leaf. The stem appears shrivelled in the one spot but it’s not squishy.
If the condition of the stem does not improve, you may have to cut off that portion and hope new growth will develop from below.
