A cluster of small brown spots spreading across a few leaves of a philodendron, each one ringed with a faint yellow halo, is easy to dismiss at first as cosmetic damage from moving the plant around. When it spreads to nearby leaves within a week or so, it becomes clear this isn’t random damage, it’s … Read more
Brushing past an echeveria while dusting a shelf and watching three or four leaves just drop right off, clean and easy, barely any contact at all, can feel like damage. It usually isn’t: a lot of succulents are actually built to lose leaves this easily on purpose, and it’s how many of them naturally propagate … Read more
Moving a weeping fig about four feet across the living room — same amount of light as far as anyone can tell, just a different spot — can still lead to it dropping what feels like half its leaves onto the floor within a couple of weeks, even when nothing else about its care has … Read more
Had a pothos that had been in the same hanging pot for close to two years, growing like mad the whole time, and started noticing the newer leaves coming in slightly curled rather than the usual flat heart shape. Watered it, checked the light, nothing seemed off. Turned out the actual issue was underneath, the … Read more
Watering a desert cactus on the same schedule used for tropical plants — weekly, without thinking about how different its actual water needs are — is a common mistake. The base starts going yellow, then a slightly sickly pale green, over a few weeks, and it is easy to keep assuming the plant just needs … Read more
Bringing an aloe in from a shady porch where it has lived happily for a year and setting it on a south-facing windowsill for the winter seems like it should help, since more light can only be good. Within a few days, though, the tops of several leaves can go brown and slightly sunken, almost … Read more
Moving an African violet to a sunnier windowsill, thinking more light will help it bloom more, can come with a surprise: within days the leaves curl downward around the pot, almost cupping themselves, and feel noticeably thicker and stiffer than before. It looks like something is wrong, and the temptation is to move the plant … Read more
A Phalaenopsis watered on schedule, every week like clockwork, can still go soft and slightly pleated, like the leaves have lost some internal pressure. Increasing how much it’s watered, on the assumption that it just isn’t getting enough, makes the leaves worse instead of better. The problem often isn’t the watering schedule at all: slide … Read more
A jade plant left on an outdoor windowsill a little too long into a cold snap — just one unexpectedly frosty night — can show a handful of leaves gone glassy and soft, almost see-through at the edges, the next morning. The first assumption is overwatering, since that’s the usual suspect with succulents, and it’s … Read more
A money tree’s thick braided trunk makes it easy to assume, incorrectly, that it stores water the way a succulent does and can be watered on a similarly relaxed schedule. Keeping it on a stingy watering routine at first out of caution, then overcorrecting once it isn’t thriving and watering more generously without really checking … Read more