What it looks like
Leaf tips dry to brown, often with a thin yellow border. The rest of the leaf stays healthy.
Why it happened
Most often dry air. Also salts and chlorine from tap water, over-fertilising, or erratic watering that swings between dry and soaked.
What to do
1. Raise humidity — a pebble tray, or group plants together. 2. Let tap water stand for 24 hours, or use filtered water. 3. Flush the substrate thoroughly every few months to wash out salts. 4. Trim the brown tips just outside the healthy tissue — they will not turn green again.
How to prevent it
Keep a steady watering rhythm rather than swinging between a soaking and nothing. That swing is what causes the tips.
Most common on these species
- Peace lily
- Spider plant
- Dragon tree
- Calathea
- Corn plant
- Boston fern
- Prayer plant
- Stromanthe
- Areca palm
- Lucky bamboo
- Maidenhair fern
- Ti plant
- Song of India
- Never never plant
- Flamingo flower
- Parlour palm
- Bird's nest fern
- Kentia palm
- Coffee plant
- Cretan brake fern
- Rabbit's foot fern