Bay: lower leaves turning yellow

What it is likely to be on bay

1. Cold damage

   Candidate 1very common on this plant

   ·source

   Sourced guidancehigh confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Bay — hardiness

   Checked 2026-08-13

   Blackened, translucent or limp tissue appearing suddenly after a cold night or a spell beside a draught. Tender plants show it well above freezing — basil blackens around 10 °C — so 'there has been no frost' does not rule it out.

   Points towards it

   • · a potted bay freezes at the roots long before one in the ground does
   • · wind on a hard frost is what browns the leaves rather than the cold alone

   Argues against it

   • · a plant kept indoors has not been frosted — this rules it out entirely.

   Check this next

   Look at which leaves are affected and which way they face. Cold and wind take the exposed side of the plant first and leave the sheltered side green, and the damage appears over the winter rather than through the growing season.

   What to do now

   Leave the damaged leaves until spring rather than stripping them, because they shelter the buds behind them, then trim back to healthy growth once it starts. Wrapping the pot rather than the plant is what actually helps: bay is hardier in its top than in its roots.

   ·source

   Sourced guidancehigh confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Bay — care

   Checked 2026-08-13

2. Pot-bound

   Candidate 2common on this plant

   ·source

   Sourced guidancemoderate confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Bay — growing in containers

   Checked 2026-08-13

   A root system that has filled its container and has nowhere left to go: roots circling the inside of the pot or emerging from the drainage holes, compost that dries out within a day of watering, and growth that has stalled despite feeding. The plant is short of both water and nutrients because there is almost no compost left to hold either.

   Points towards it

   • · a starved bay sheds its oldest leaves and makes shorter new growth each year
   • · a full rootball dries out again within a day or two of watering
   • · nothing has been done to it, which is itself the problem on a long-term pot plant

   Argues against it

   • · a recently repotted plant has root room — this rules it out entirely.

   Check this next

   Compare this year's growth with last year's. A bay running out of root room makes progressively shorter shoots each season and yellows its oldest leaves steadily through summer, rather than all at once over a winter.

   What to do now

   Move it up one pot size in spring, or take it out, trim the outer roots and return it to the same pot with fresh compost. Bay is slow enough that this is a job every second or third year, and a plant that has not had it for a decade will not recover from feeding alone.

   ·source

   Sourced guidancemoderate confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Bay — care

   Checked 2026-08-13

Narrow it down

This page lists everything at once, which is the right shape for reading and the wrong shape for deciding. The interactive tool asks one question at a time, starting with whichever would separate these causes fastest, and stops as soon as further answers would not help.

Opens with the plant and the symptom already set. Nothing you answer is stored or sent anywhere — the answers live in the address bar and nowhere else.

What this does not cover

These are the causes GrowingHQ holds rules for on bay — not every cause there is. Where several problems look alike, the honest answer is often that they cannot be told apart by eye, and a page that named one would be guessing. If none of the above fits, the general lower leaves turning yellow page lists causes across all plants, and the Bay profile lists the problems it is prone to.