While the cause of browning can differ depending on the type and location of your plant, here are some general rules of (green)thumb to remember. Rebecca Bullene, the founder of Brooklyn-based plant shop Greenery Unlimited, says that this browning is a plant’s way of telling you it’s stressed. “Plants get stressed just like humans do—and like with humans, their stress is cumulative over time,” she explains. This means that the leaf browning you’re seeing may not even be an immediate reaction to your recent watering routine but instead speak to the tiny stressors your plant has been putting up with for a while. Try watering more regularly and consistently and/or increasing the humidity around your plant moving forward and see if it helps over time. If only one leaf has a lone brown tip, it could be a sign of sunburn. If that plant is sitting near a window, consider moving it inward slightly so it isn’t getting as much exposure to full sun. Finally, if the brown tips and edges are a common theme on the older leaves of a houseplant (which tend to sit farther down on the plant) that you’ve had for a while, it could just be a natural sign of aging. In this case there’s not much to be done except appreciate your plant pal’s long life. The next time you water your plant, double-check to make sure that the first few inches of its soil are totally dry to the touch first. “I really encourage people to actually get comfortable touching the soil,” says Bullene. “It’s really hard to visually see how wet the dirt is. To know how things are going below the surface, you kind of need to use your other senses.” Again, remember that plants take a little while to show you what they need, so don’t expect the leaves to turn green again overnight. The plant’s new leaf growth will be a better indicator of how it’s really doing. Emma received her B.A. in Environmental Science & Policy with a specialty in environmental communications from Duke University. In addition to penning over 1,000 mbg articles on topics from the water crisis in California to the rise of urban beekeeping, her work has appeared on Grist, Bloomberg News, Bustle, and Forbes. She’s spoken about the intersection of self-care and sustainability on podcasts and live events alongside environmental thought leaders like Marci Zaroff, Gay Browne, and Summer Rayne Oakes.
