A croton bought for its color, with streaks of red, orange, and yellow across every leaf, and then set in a dim corner of a home office where it gets little actual daylight, tends to disappoint. Within a couple of months the new leaves curl slightly at the edges and come in mostly green instead … Read more
A Chinese money plant left alone for two weeks during a trip can come back looking completely flat, every leaf drooping straight down off a limp stem like it has given up entirely. It looks dead, but a good watering often has the whole plant perking back up to its normal upright shape, coin-shaped leaves … Read more
Moving a jade plant from a bright south-facing windowsill to a spot by the front door in October, thinking it will still get enough light, is a common way to end up with a dozen leaves on the floor within a week or so. It looks like the plant is dying, but jade plants react … Read more
Peperomia has thick, almost rubbery leaves, so it’s easy to treat it like a succulent, watering it on the same sparse schedule as a jade plant. The leaves start curling inward and a few stems go soft near the base before the mistake becomes clear. Peperomia looks succulent-adjacent, but it doesn’t behave like one when … Read more
An alocasia can drop every single leaf one November, down to a bare pot of soil, and it is tempting to throw it out. The plant is often just dormant: leave it alone and keep the soil barely damp through winter, and new growth typically shows up in spring, right on schedule. Composting a perfectly … Read more
A glossy, heart-shaped anthurium with the occasional red flower spike can start yellowing in an odd pattern: the veins stay distinctly green while everything between them fades to yellow, almost like a stained glass window. Root rot is the first suspicion, but pulling the plant out shows roots that are completely fine. That pattern (interveinal … Read more
A rex begonia is easy to buy for the leaf pattern alone, that swirl of silver and deep maroon that doesn’t look real in photos. A faint white dusting on a few leaves, right before they start yellowing and dropping, is easy to mistake for a pest, and it’s tempting to spend a weekend checking … Read more
The segments of a Christmas cactus turning a deep reddish-purple right as the weather cools in fall can look alarming: it is easy to assume something is wrong, maybe the plant is too cold, maybe it is some kind of nutrient problem. Moving it to a warmer spot and fussing over it for a couple … Read more
Dry brown tips on nearly every leaf send most people through the usual list: check the soil moisture, move the plant away from the heating vent, even up the humidity with a pebble tray. When none of that helps, the tap water is the next thing to look at. Dracaenas are among the more fluoride-sensitive … Read more
A hoya cutting from a plant swap can leave you waiting for weeks for the leaves to “flatten out” the way healthy leaves are supposed to. Some varieties just grow slightly cupped and a little rippled at the edges, and it’s easy to spend too long assuming something is wrong before looking up the specific … Read more