What is wrong with my plant?
Twenty seven symptoms, with the causes ranked and the fixes given
Find what you can see rather than what you think it is. Almost every houseplant complaint looks like two or three different problems at once, and the way through is to start from the symptom and work towards the cause rather than the other way round. Each page below gives the causes in the order they are likely, how to tell one from another, and what to do.
If you know which plant it is, the diagnoser is faster: it asks which plant, which part and what you see, and puts the causes the plant's own entry names at the top.
The leaves
- Brown crisp edges on the leaves
- Brown soft patches on the leaves
- Brown tips on otherwise healthy leaves
- Fine webbing between the leaves
- Holes chewed in the leaves
- Leaves curling inwards or under
- Leaves falling off
- Limp, drooping leaves
- Long bare stems and pale new leaves
- New leaves with no splits or holes
- Spots on the leaves
- Sticky residue on the leaves or the floor
- White fluff where the leaf meets the stem
- White or yellow markings fading to plain green
- White powder on the leaves
- Wrinkled or shrivelled leaves
- Yellow leaves at the bottom of the plant
- Yellow new leaves at the growing tip