Guides · Brown leaf tips

Why are the tips of my plant's leaves turning brown?

Because the tip is the furthest point from the roots, so it is the first to go without whatever the plant is short of — water, humidity, or clean water. Brown tips are the commonest houseplant complaint in a British home, they are almost never serious, and they are almost always about the room rather than the plant.

By Sabz

What it is
The tip of the leaf drying out before the rest: the last stop on the plant's plumbing, so the first to run dry
The tell
Brown, crisp, papery tips and edges, often with a thin yellow line where they meet the green. The rest of the leaf is fine
Urgency
None. Nothing is dying. Fix the room and the water, and judge by the next leaf
01

What is actually happening

Water moves from the roots to the leaves and out through the leaves into the air. The tip and the margin of a leaf are at the end of that line. When the supply falls short of the demand — because the air is pulling water out faster than the roots can send it, or because the roots have nothing to send — the end of the line is where the shortfall shows. The tissue dries, dies, and goes brown and papery. Once brown it stays brown; a leaf cannot repair a dead tip.

There is a second mechanism that looks the same. Tap water carries dissolved minerals — calcium and, in most of southern and eastern England, plenty of it — plus chlorine and, in some supplies, fluoride. Every watering leaves a little behind in the compost. The plant moves it to the leaf margins, where water evaporates and the salts stay, and over months they build up to a concentration that burns the tissue from the inside. Fertiliser does exactly the same thing faster, which is why a plant that is fed generously and watered with hard tap water has brown tips whatever the humidity.

Four causes, then, and they have different fixes: dry air, minerals, thirst and feeding. The tips look alike; the rest of the plant tells you which.

02

Telling the four apart

  • Dry air. The tips started going within a few weeks of the heating coming on, or the plant sits beside or above a radiator, or in the draught from a door. The compost is moist. The plants that show it first are the thin-leaved ones from humid places: calathea, maranta, ferns, spider plant, peace lily, dracaena.
  • Minerals in tap water. The tips have crept in slowly over months, in any season. There may be a white crust on the compost surface or the pot rim. You are in a hard-water area — most of the south and east — and you water from the tap. Dracaena, spider plant, calathea, prayer plant and peace lily are the most sensitive.
  • Thirst. The tips and edges crisped over a week or two, the compost was bone dry when you checked, and the leaves may also be curling or folding. Whole edges, not just tips. The underwatering guide is the fuller case.
  • Feeding. The plant is fed every week or two, or with a strong dose, and the tips browned soon after. Often there is a crust on the surface and the newest leaves are affected as much as the old. This is the one that gets worse with more care.

If the compost is moist, the plant has not been fed heavily, and the heating is on: dry air. If it is winter and you are in London or the south-east and the tips came slowly: water. Usually it is both.

03

What to do

Move it out of the moving air.
Off the radiator, out of the line from a door or an air vent, back from a cold window at night. This is the whole fix for most plants in most homes.
Raise the humidity around it, not on it.
Group plants together — they make their own humid pocket. Stand the pot on a tray of gravel with water below the pot's base. A bathroom or a kitchen window suits a calathea or a fern far better than a living room in winter. Misting wets the leaves for a few minutes and does nothing measurable; a humidifier does, if you are prepared to run one.
Change the water.
Rainwater is best; filtered water or tap water left to stand overnight is a fair second; boiled and cooled tap water drops some of the lime. For the sensitive plants — dracaena, spider plant, calathea, peace lily — it makes the difference on its own.
Flush the compost.
Every couple of months, water the pot through with two or three times its volume, let it drain fully, and the accumulated salts go with it. Do it in the sink or the bath.
Feed less.
Half the strength on the label, half as often, and nothing at all from October to March. A houseplant in a British home needs far less than the bottle suggests.
Water properly.
A thorough soak when the top few centimetres are dry, then nothing until they are dry again. Small daily sips wet the surface, never reach the roots, and produce brown tips from thirst on a plant that is watered every day.
Trim the tips, for looks.
Clean scissors, cut just inside the brown following the leaf's shape, and leave a hair of brown so you do not open a fresh wound. Or leave them; the plant does not mind.
04

What not to do

  • Do not water more because the tips are brown. Unless the compost is dry, water is not the shortage, and more of it turns a cosmetic problem into root rot.
  • Do not feed it to "help it recover." Feeding is one of the four causes.
  • Do not mist as a routine. It is the most recommended fix and the least effective; it can also mark the leaves and spread leaf spot.
  • Do not cut every marked leaf off. A leaf with a brown tip is still a working leaf. Remove only what is more than a third brown.
  • Do not repot. Fresh compost resets the mineral build-up, which is worth knowing, but a plant with brown tips does not need the disturbance; a flush does the same job.
05

Common questions

Should I cut brown tips off my plant?

You can, for looks, and it does no harm: clean scissors, cut just inside the brown following the leaf's shape, and leave a hair of brown rather than cutting into green. It does not fix the cause — the next tips will brown until the air or the water changes. A leaf that is more than a third brown is better removed at the base.

Do brown tips mean overwatering or underwatering?

Usually neither. Brown tips are most often dry air or minerals in tap water; the compost is moist and the watering is fine. Thirst does cause them — crisp whole edges, with dry compost and curling leaves — and overwatering does not, at least not directly: an overwatered plant yellows from the bottom and droops, which is a different page.

Can brown leaf tips turn green again?

No. The brown tissue is dead and stays brown for the life of the leaf. The plant's recovery shows in the new leaves, which come in clean once the cause is fixed. Judge the fix by the next leaf, not the marked ones.

Does tap water cause brown tips?

In a hard-water area, yes, over months: calcium and other minerals build up in the compost, move to the leaf margins and burn them. Chlorine and, in some supplies, fluoride do the same to the sensitive plants — dracaena, spider plant, calathea, peace lily. Rainwater, filtered water or tap water left to stand overnight, plus a flush of the compost every couple of months, stops it.

Does misting stop brown tips?

Not measurably. A mist raises the humidity around the leaf for a few minutes, and the tip browns over weeks. Grouping plants, a gravel tray under the pot, moving the plant off the radiator, or a humidifier all change the air for hours at a time, which is what the leaf needs.

06

Plants this often affects

The thin-leaved plants from humid places show it first: calathea, spider plant, dragon tree, peace lily and Boston fern — the peace lily has its own page, because it is the one people ask about most.

All 265 plants in the library →

07

Still not sure?

The RHS's page on leaf damage on houseplants covers the rarer causes this page leaves out — scorch, cold, pests. Sabz's Check-up asks about the room as well as the watering: whether the plant sits near a radiator, whether it was moved, what you water with — and it weighs that against the season, because brown tips that arrived with the heating are a different answer from brown tips that arrived with a dry spell. Pick Brown, crispy tips or edges, answer honestly, and it tells you which of the four this is for your plant.

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