Why are my Houseplant Leaves turning Brown at the Tip?

The annoying reply to the question to “Why are my Houseplant Leaves turning Brown at the Tip?” would be “Because they’re dying”. Annoying it may be, but it is true, in so far as the tip of the houseplant leaf is most definitely not thriving! However, it does not mean that your whole houseplant is dying. Well, not yet anyway. And because there is still life in your houseplant, be it a Spider plant (Chlorophytum), a Dracaena or even a Calathea, there are things you can do to remedy the situation.

6 Common Reasons for Houseplant Leaves turning Brown at the Tip

Houseplant leaves turning brown more commonly occurs with narrow leaved plants, such as the all-time favourite Spider plants, Dracanea, Sanseveria, Cordyline. But it can also occur on broad leaved houseplants and carnivorous plants. Usually when a leaf tip turns brown, it’s because it didn’t receive enough moisture, or it had too much, or there are excess salts and minerals in the leaf.

Reasons why your houseplant has brown leaf tips are all well and good. Lets look at why it happens and what you can do to resolve the issue and hopefully save your plant.

Chlorine Damage

If your houseplant leaves turning brown is a common occurrence it may be not the regularity of the watering you do, but the type of water you’re using. Which is why I’ve put this one first, in case you’re tempted to run off and carry out remedies for over or underwatering your houseplants before reading the whole article…
Certain houseplants are particularly sensitive to the accumulation of chlorine in the soil. Always using water straight from the tap has killed off many a plant. Even I’ve killed off a pitcher plant, Sarracenia, by this means…

Solution

Distilled water, rainwater and chlorine free bottled spring water are what you need to use for these sensitive types. Check the label on bottled water as some brands contain chlorine.

Also from an environmental perspective, collecting rainwater has to be the more eco friendly and sustainable option. If you already have a water butt this would be your source during the warmer months. In winter, you could bring a watering can full in and allow the temperature to warm up before using on your houseplants.

Distilled water can be bought, or made at home fairly easily. Wikihow shows three methods; I’ve often used the first one as I find it the simplest.

Overwatering

Unless it happens to be an aquatic plant, regular overwatering is going to harm any plant. The reason why is as follows: Roots in wet soil die. Interestingly, its usually through suffocation rather than drowning (but that’s another story, ask me later!)

As the roots die, less water and nutrients are taken up by the plant’s transport system. The leaf tips, being an extremity, suffer first, so the leaf tips die and turn brown.

There are a few houseplants which are semi-aquatic. For example, the Umbrella Palm, Cyperus alternifolius, also known as Umbrella sedge. They like to have wet roots.

Solution

Wait until the soil is dry before watering. This is not just the soil surface, but down at root level. Put your finger in to quickly check. Or use something like a wooden ice lolly stick and leave it in place for short time to absorb any moisture (or not)
In future, water sufficiently to wet the entire root ball. If the soil mix regularly goes from moist to just slightly dry, you’ll never overwater. Leaving a plant to regularly stand in water for hours is not a good idea.

Underwatering

Of course some people are so scared of overwatering that they end up underwatering. Or they forget to water their houseplants for weeks on end. Which is fine for cacti, but not for most other plants!

If you are not giving sufficient water even when you water regularly, the roots never receive enough moisture. The leaf tips, being furthest away from the supply show signs of thirst first.

Hanging basket plants are more prone to underwatering. Understandably, we don’t want puddles of water all over the carpet, this, plus the often tiny saucers that hanging baskets are provided with, mean we can be somewhat parsimonious. Insufficient water, unhappy plants.

Solution

Initially, get your plant in its pot and put it in a bowl or bucket. Pour 25 – 50 cm of water into the bucket. Your plant may float – a sure sign its soil has dried out! If it wont stay upright put it in a smaller bucket/ bowl so it cant fall over. Leave for half an hour. Then check if there’s any water left and how wet the root ball is. If all the water has gone and the root ball is not fully wetted, then add some more water and leave for another half hour.

Once the plant has taken up all the water it can, allow excess to drop away. This can be achieved by putting in a steamer with the pan under (no heat though!) so the water can drain away. If you don’t have a steamer, use a colander, the aim is to let water drain away, so sitting the pot in a saucer doesn’t work.

When its no longer dripping, put the plant back into its cache pot. Do not water again until you’ve done the dampness test as above.

Preventing houseplant leaves turning brown at the tip – a few more points on watering

Leaving water in an open container for 24 hours before using it to allow chlorine to evaporate is one of those urban myths. The type of chlorine commonly used to treat water doesn’t just evaporate.
Boiling water and then leaving it to cool is not the same as distilling it. It will remove many microorganisms but still contains mineral salts, like calcium and chlorine.
Occasional watering with tap water should be fine for the vast majority of houseplants, just don’t make a habit of it!

Dry Air / Lack of Humidity

Funnily enough this is still related to water and watering. Houseplant leaves turning brown during winter when we have our central heating on is a common problem. The reason why is that central heating reduces the air’s relative humidity in the room, drying it. Your houseplants compensate for the dry air by increasing their transpiration rate, ie they lose water by evaporation. A bit like us humans sweating, if you like.

Its normal for plants to transpire, indeed it encourages the flow of water and nutrients through the plant. But the increase causes problems, and is exacerbated when the houseplant is stressed through lack of water. The leaf tip, being at the far end of the system, is the first casualty.

Solution

The obvious one is to increase the humidity around the suffering houseplant. However, check it’s location first. If its too near a radiator, simply moving it may be sufficient. Grouping plants together helps them to form their own little microclimate and may help retain humidity.

Other ways to increase humidity include lacing the pot on a saucer with gravel in it and keeping the gravel moist and spraying the plants with distilled water on a regular basis. Spraying on its own isn’t sufficiently long lasting.

You can run a humidifier in the room; but the noise may be irritating if its your main living room. Alternatively, move the plants to another room which has a higher humidity, such as a kitchen or bathroom.

For really sensitive plants, you could try growing then in a terrarium. Or even seal them in a clear plastic bag as a makeshift version. This latter is probably not suitable for plants you want on show, but could be used as a temporary respite.

Remembering to turn down the thermostat when you’re at work / overnight / away for the weekend. Reducing the temperature will temporarily increase the ambient humidity. But be sure you’re not turning the temperature so low that they get too cold, they are from warmer climates.

Over Fertilisation

Akin to you overindulging the Danish pastries and bingeing on the healthy fruit and veg plus lots of supplements. This is where the leaf tips are turning brown due to an excess of minerals.

Solution

Follow the instructions and ratios given on the packet. If anything feed less fertiliser than recommended, you can usually reduce by as much as half. Generally speaking only feed during the growing season, not during dormancy.

Soil Issues / Contaminated Soil

Not only do the leaf tips suffer from an excess of mineral salts, but the soil your houseplant is sitting in can also be contaminated. A strong word perhaps, but watering with chlorinated water and over fertilising affect the soil.
Potentially this is affecting the soil and roots within it as well as the leaf tips, its just that the leaves are the bit you can see. Try tipping out your plant from its pot. If its been in there a while, you may see white staining on the pot interior. That’s likely to be mineral residue.

Solution

Water and fertilise as recommended above.
Refresh soil on a regular basis. This can be done by removing some or most of the older soil and adding new.
You could also leach the soil. This is basically washing the soil to remove excess salts and lower the overall concentration of salts in the pot. An easy way to do this is to water as normal (with distilled water!) and wait 5 minutes to give the salts in the soil time to dissolve. Then place the pot in your bathtub or sink, and water abundantly and enthusiastically. The excess water, carrying the unwanted salts will flow through the soil and out, heading down your drain.
You could use this water on outdoor plants as excess of salts won’t be a risk for most of them. Better used in border plants than container plants unless you generally use rainwater for those.

Happy houseplants?

Houseplant leaves turning brown at the tip is something to take note of. Hopefully I’ve resolved your issues about why its happening. And offered solutions to rescue your plants before they have to be sent to the great compost heap in the sky.

There are some other reasons why leaf tips turn brown, pests and diseases for example. But that topic is more species specific.

For someone who’s grown various houseplants for decades, I don’t seem to have written much about them on Plews Potting Shed blog. A few links are below, but I promise to write more blogs on houseplants for you. Including one on my Garby plant – and there aren’t many of you who will know which houseplant I’m talking about, but you will.

Even if you have houseplants and no outside plants, you may also enjoy some of the “topics of interest”, history and short stories. And if you have any queries about watering houseplants or gardening do please get in touch – even if that’s sharing your houseplant photos on Instagram with @plewsgd – love to see them!