Why does my peace lily have brown tips on otherwise healthy leaves?
On a peace lily the very tip of a leaf, and sometimes the margin back from it, turns brown and dry, often with a thin yellow band where the brown meets the green. The rest of the leaf stays a good dark green.
The most likely cause for this plant is what is in the tap water. The Royal Horticultural Society says the fluoride in tap water can damage the foliage of peace lilies, and the entry lists hard water, dry air and overfeeding as the usual order of causes. A peace lily is also watered often, about every 5 days in the growing season and about every 8 in winter, so whatever the water carries is delivered again and again.
To confirm it in a minute, look at the neighbours. If other plants in the room have clean tips and the peace lily alone is marked, with a neat brown point on leaf after leaf, the water is the likeliest cause. Then look at the surface of the compost and around the drainage holes for a white or pale crust, which means salts from water and feed are building up.
Two other causes are worth ruling out. Dry air browns the tips on several plants at once from the day the heating goes on, worst on the ones nearest a radiator, and this is a plant that wants high humidity. A habit of letting the plant collapse between waterings browns tips as well, because each full wilt kills a few roots. Feeding is the third: the entry asks for a weak feed every two weeks in spring and summer, and anything stronger leaves salt behind.
Brown tips never turn green again, so you cannot judge the recovery by the old leaves. Judge it by the new ones, which should open with clean tips once the cause has changed. In the growing season a new leaf takes a few weeks, and the improvement usually shows over one season of new growth.
What this plant wants
| Light | Medium light |
|---|---|
| Water, growing season | Every 5 days |
| Water, winter | Every 8 days |
| Humidity | High |
| Temperature | 15 to 27 °C |
| Grows in winter | No |
The fix
Raise humidity, use rainwater or filtered water, and halve the feed.
Read on
- Brown tips on otherwise healthy leaves
- The same sign on any plant, with the causes in the order they are likely.
- Peace lily 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.
Checked against
The figures and the advice on this page were checked against the sources below, and where they disagree the page says so.