Why does my snake plant have brown tips on otherwise healthy leaves?

On a snake plant the very point of a leaf turns brown and dry, a short crisp tip, sometimes with a thin yellow band where it meets the green. The rest of the leaf stays upright and banded as it should.

The most likely cause for this plant, as the entry puts it, is inconsistent watering or cold damage. A snake plant is built for a long dry spell followed by a proper soak, but a pot that goes bone dry for weeks, is then flooded, and then is left dry again marks the tips. Cold does the same: the entry puts its minimum at 10 degrees, and a plant against a winter window can brown its tips on a cold night.

To confirm it in a minute, push a finger down the pot and think back over the last month. A long gap followed by a heavy soak points to watering. Then look at where the browning is. If it is worst on the leaves touching the glass or the side nearest a cold door, it is cold. Cold damage often looks darker and slightly translucent before it browns.

The third cause to rule out is the water itself. The page on brown tips names dracaenas among the plants that are sensitive to fluoride and chlorine in tap water, and the snake plant is now classed as a Dracaena. A neat brown point on leaf after leaf, with a thin yellow halo, while other plants in the room are unmarked, suggests it. Feeding too strongly can brown tips too, though the entry asks for only a couple of half-strength feeds a year.

A brown tip never turns green again. This plant is a slow grower, so you judge the recovery by the new leaves it makes in spring and summer, which should come through with clean tips. Make that judgement over a season, not a fortnight.

What this plant wants

The fix

Keep above 10 degrees and water on a steadier rhythm.

Read on

Brown tips on otherwise healthy leaves

The same sign on any plant, with the causes in the order they are likely.

Snake plant care

Light, water, feeding, repotting and the rest of the entry.

Check it in the diagnoser

Opens with the plant, the part and the sign already chosen.