Why is my plant dropping its leaves?

A leaf is expensive, and a plant sizes its canopy to the light, water and warmth it can count on. Change any of those suddenly and the plant re-budgets: it cuts loose the leaves it can no longer afford, from the oldest or the most exposed, and puts what it has into surviving the new situation. A fiddle-leaf fig moved across a room can lose a third of its leaves in a fortnight and be perfectly healthy; it has simply decided the new spot supports fewer. A croton by a front door does the same every time the door opens in December.

That is why the leaves are often green when they drop. Yellowing before the drop is the slow story — water, light, age — covered on the yellow leaves page. Green leaves dropping is the fast one, and the cause is nearly always in the calendar: what happened to the plant in the two weeks before it started.

• A move. Home from the shop; from one room to another; from the garden or a balcony back indoors in September. New light, new temperature, new air. The commonest cause and the most often missed, because the move was three weeks ago and the drop started a week later.
• A repot. Roots disturbed cannot supply the leaves for a while; the plant sheds some to match. Worse if the new pot is much bigger or the roots were cut.
• A cold draught. A door to outside, a window opened at night, a hallway. Tropical plants — croton, ficus, money tree, calathea — drop leaves at a draught below about fifteen degrees within days.
• The heating. Dry air from the radiator under the sill and a swing between warm days and cold nights by the glass. The autumn drop in a British home is mostly this.
• Cold glass at night. A leaf touching a window in October is a few degrees colder than the room; the plant sheds it.
• Watering that changed — a plant that went bone dry, then was flooded, sheds leaves too. That case is on the underwatering and overwatering pages; the compost tells you which.

Find the change.

What happened in the fortnight before the first leaf fell? Moved, repotted, bought, the heating, a window, a door. If you keep a care log this is a glance; if you do not, think back.

Undo what can be undone.

Away from the draught, off the radiator, back from the glass. Not a whole new position — the smallest move that fixes the cause.

Then leave it where it is.

For a month. A plant that is moved again to “help” restarts the drop. Stability is the treatment.

Water by the compost, not the routine.

A plant with fewer leaves drinks less; the watering that was right before the drop is now too much. Feel the top few centimetres.

Do not feed

until new growth appears. A stressed plant cannot use it.

Judge by the new growth.

Once it settles it grows again from the tips or the stem; that is the sign it has decided the new spot will do. Usually three to six weeks.

• Do not move it again, and do not repot it. Both restart the clock.
• Do not water more because it is losing leaves. Fewer leaves means less water.
• Do not cut it back while it is dropping, unless a stem is dead. It has already removed what it wanted to.
• Do not confuse it with autumn. A ficus or a schefflera indoors sheds a few older leaves every autumn as the light drops; a handful, slowly, is the season. A pile on the floor in a week is a change.

The dramatic shedders are the tropical trees — fiddle-leaf fig, weeping fig, rubber plant, croton and money tree — which drop green leaves at a move or a draught and regrow once they are left alone.

• Asparagus FernAsparagus setaceus
• Baby Rubber PlantPeperomia obtusifolia
• Boston FernNephrolepis exaltata
• Burro's TailSedum morganianum
• CrotonCodiaeum variegatum
• Desert RoseAdenium obesum
• Easter LilyLilium longiflorum
• Elephant Ear (Alocasia)Alocasia x amazonica
• Fiddle Leaf FigFicus lyrata
• Jade PlantCrassula ovata
• Money TreePachira aquatica
• Panda PlantKalanchoe tomentosa
• Pencil CactusEuphorbia tirucalli
• PoinsettiaEuphorbia pulcherrima
• Rubber PlantFicus elastica
• Umbrella PlantSchefflera arboricola
• Weeping FigFicus benjamina
• Zebra PlantAphelandra squarrosa
• Artillery PlantPilea microphylla
• AvocadoPersea americana
• AzaleaRhododendron simsii
• Busy LizzieImpatiens walleriana
• Calamondin OrangeCitrus mitis
• CamelliaCamellia japonica
• China DollRadermachera sinica
• Crown of ThornsEuphorbia milii
• False AraliaDizygotheca elegantissima
• FuchsiaFuchsia hybrida
• GardeniaGardenia jasminoides
• Geranium AraliaPolyscias guilfoylei
• Ghost PlantGraptopetalum paraguayense
• Goldfish PlantNematanthus
• Grape IvyCissus rhombifolia
• HibiscusHibiscus syriacus
• Ivy PeperomiaPeperomia griseoargentea
• IxoraIxora javanica
• LantanaLantana camara
• Lemon VerbenaAloysia triphylla
• Leopard OrchidDendrobium gracilicaule
• Lily-of-the-Valley OrchidOdontoglossum pulchellum
• Lipstick PlantAeschynanthus radicans
• Madagascar JasmineStephanotis floribunda
• Metallic-Leaf BegoniaBegonia metallica
• OliveOlea europaea
• Pansy OrchidMiltonia roezlii
• Persian VioletExacum affine
• Silver Jade PlantCrassula arborescens
• String of TurtlesPeperomia prostrata
• Ti PlantCordyline fruticosa
• Winter CherrySolanum pseudocapsicum

All 265 plants in the library →

Why is my plant dropping green leaves?

Green leaves dropping fast means the plant is reacting to a sudden change — a move, a repot, a cold draught, the heating coming on — and shedding the leaves it cannot support in the new conditions. It is not dying. Find what changed in the last fortnight, undo it if you can, and then leave the plant where it is for a month.

Is it normal for a plant to drop leaves after repotting?

Yes, for a few weeks. Disturbed roots cannot supply the whole canopy at first, so the plant sheds some leaves to match. Keep it in the same spot, water by the compost rather than the routine, do not feed, and new growth follows once the roots recover.

Why is my fiddle leaf fig dropping leaves?

Because something changed: a move, a draught from a door or window, a cold night by the glass, or the heating drying the air. Fiddle-leaf figs are the most reactive houseplant in the shop. Give it bright, indirect light in a stable, draught-free spot and stop moving it; it settles in a few weeks.

Should I water a plant that is dropping leaves?

Only when the top few centimetres of compost are dry. A plant with fewer leaves uses less water, so the routine that was right before the drop is now too much — and overwatering a stressed plant is how a shed becomes a rot. Feel the compost first.

Will the leaves grow back?

Not the same leaves — a dropped leaf is gone — but the plant regrows once it has settled, from the growing tips and, on many plants, from the bare stem. Expect new growth within three to six weeks of the conditions becoming stable, and judge the recovery by that, not by the leaves on the floor.

The RHS's page on leaf damage on houseplants covers the causes this page leaves out. Sabz's Check-up is built for exactly this question, because it knows what you did: it reads when the plant was moved or repotted and what the room has been like, and it can say this started nine days after the move rather than guessing from the leaf. Pick Dropping leaves, and it weighs the history.