One of the worst fears of every plant parent is the plants’ yellow leaves that appear through no rhyme or reason, leaving you longing for better days.

Have no fear any longer! There are a few main reasons why the leaves in your house plants turn yellow, and I’m going to cover them all while troubleshooting your plants’ yellow leaves.

How Do You Fix Plants’ Yellow Leaves?

If you have a yellowing plant, then follow these steps to identify and correct the problem. Let’s begin:

1. Overwatering

Overwatering your plant means that its soil is constantly wet. You may be watering your houseplants every two or three days, guessing this is what they need, but houseplants generally don’t like to be sitting in too much water.

If you are over watering your houseplants, then your plant will usually respond by developing yellow mushy leaves that are also limp. When this happens to a house plant, people tend to assume that it’s a problem with a lack of water, and they end up giving the plant more water, thereby making the problem worse.

Identification

The best way to identify the problem is to stick your finger deep into the soil and feel whether the soil is dry at the top two or three inches. If it feels moist, then I’d leave it for a few days before checking again. An alternative option is to invest in a moisture meter. This tells you exactly how moist the soil is.

Solution

Water the plant twice a week; start with a light sprinkle for a week before resuming the recommended watering level per plant genus. Remember not to overdo it, as it can log soil air spaces, causing mould and other infestations.

2. Under Watering

Another common reason why your plants’ yellow leaves form is a consistent lack of water. If you repeatedly put your plant for a period of drought by not watering for weeks at a time, this is going to stress the plant out, and the leaves will start to turn yellow.

Identification

Regularly monitor the moisture level in your plants using my moisture meter, look for cracks in the soil, and check for flaky, dry soil. Stem browning is an indication of underwatering.

Solution

The general advice for most houseplants is to let the soil dry out in between waterings, but you don’t want to go too far. There should still be some level of moisture in the soil, so it is generally recommended to water houseplants once a week during the spring and summer while the plant is actively growing and reduce that down to probably once every two or three weeks during the winter and this seems to be the sweet spot for plants

3. Overcrowded Roots

If your house plant is severely root-bound, its leaves will start to turn yellow. This is because there are too many roots in the pots, causing a lack of nutrients and water in the soil for the plant to push out new growth, and older leaves will start to wilt and die.

Identification

Check the roots of plants every spring to see whether they’re root-bound and need potting up into a bigger pot.

Solution

If your plant is root-bound, you should put it into a bigger pot with some fresh potting soil and monitor its growth periodically.

Another method to avoid this is to bottom water your plants, that is, water your plants through the drain hole at the bottom. This helps roots to spread out to the bottom in search of water instead of circling and crowding the top

4. Too Much Direct Sunlight

This is probably one of the most common reasons for yellowing plants. House plants generally like indirect sunlight and will not tolerate prolonged exposure to direct sun.

Identification

The greens aren’t popping as much as they should be, which suggests there is a little bit of sun stress.

Solution

Therefore, moving this plant away from direct sun to a relatively low log region in your house is a relatively risk-free approach.

5. Lack of Sunlight

Lack of sunlight can also be an issue for your plant. If your plant is in a dark corner of your room and the leaves are turning yellow, it may be a problem because it’s not getting enough indirect sunlight. Plants, of course, need light photosynthesis to see and store energy. If it’s not getting enough light, then the plant cannot make enough energy to push out new growth, and the leaves will start to turn yellow.

Identification

You’ll probably also notice that the leaves on your plant look faded and limp.

Solution

If this is the case, it’s an easy fix. Move your plant closer to the window in your house, but keep it out of direct sunlight, and it should respond fairly well.

6. Pests/ Disease

Yellowing leaves can indicate a pest or disease problem on your house plant; deformed leaves would usually accompany this, so a pest that’s on your plant would normally be sucking the sap from the leaves of the plant.

Identification

You should see some blotching on the leaves; this would be small, so just carefully examine the leaves very closely, the underside and on the top of the leaves. You may also spot some black spots on the leaves.

Solution

This would indicate pest excrement that has been left on the plant’s leaves. If you do notice something a little bit odd, you can always search on Google for pest damage on houseplants and check the images to see if you can see a match with what you’re seeing on your houseplants. Then, you may sprinkle some pest control solution or Neem oil on your plants.

7. Natural Aging

Sometimes, they turn yellow simply due to natural ageing. As the plant gets older and bigger, it will naturally shed some of its older leaves as it puts its energy into pushing out new growth.

Identification

This only affects a few leaves at a time. If your whole plant is looking a bit yellow, then it probably indicates that there’s nothing to do here except just cut the leaves out.

Solution

Go through so just as far to the base as possible and then just cut out all the yellowing leaves that’ll improve the appearance of the plants and it’ll improve the health of the plant so that the plant can stop putting its energy in towards those spent leaves and focus its energy on pushing out new growth.

8. Fertilizing Problems

This is another common reason why your plants’ leaves are turning yellow, but this can be a bit trickier to identify. We need to be careful before making decisions about fertilizing our plants; otherwise, we risk doing damage to our plants. Therefore, leave this to the last possible reason and discount all other reasons before landing on this as the cause. People often confuse yellowing leaves for lack of nutrients and fertilize their plants repeatedly to try and solve the problem when this is actually slowly killing the plant by giving the plant more nutrients than it can handle.

Identification

The telltale sign here is yellowing leaves. If you’ve never fertilized your plants, then the chances are that your plants are struggling for nutrients. In this case I would give the plant a light fertilizer and see how it responds.

Solution

Plants need food just like you and me and other organisms to survive. You should periodically fertilize your house plants once a month during the spring and summer and use a very light dosage following the instructions on the box of the fertilizer.

If you were fertilizing more than this and you have yellowing leaves, then I suggest you take the plant out of its pots, discard the soil, then wash the roots, repot and see how the plant responds.

Also Read: How To Grow Plants From Rhizomes?

In Conclusion

There you have it now. It’s easy to identify the cause of your plants turning yellow and pick an apt solution to see how it responds to the most likely problems that you think are affecting the plant. All plants are different, so keep that in mind and be patient when dealing with these gentle creatures.

Also Read: 7 Best-Rated Indoor Plants From Walmart: 2024