GrowingHQ

Spider plant: brown, crisp leaf tips

2 causes GrowingHQ holds specifically for spider plant, what separates them, and what is safe to do before you are sure.

What you are looking at

The tips and sometimes the margins going brown, dry and papery while the rest of the leaf stays green. Almost universal on houseplants in a heated house in winter, and one of the few signs where the compost tells you more than the leaf does — the same tips mean dry air on a well-watered plant and drought on a dry one.

What it is likely to be on spider plant

  1. Fertiliser scorch

    Candidate 1common on this plant
    source

    Sourced guidancemoderate confidence

    • Royal Horticultural Society: Fertiliser damage

    Checked 2026-08-13

    Damage caused by too much fertiliser rather than too little: brown crisp leaf tips and margins, a white crust on the compost surface or pot rim, and roots that are brown at the tips. It is easily mistaken for underwatering, and watering more makes it worse if the feed continues.

    Points towards it

    • · the plant has been fed, which is when this appears
    • · salts accumulate in a pot in a way they do not in open ground

    Argues against it

    • · fresh compost after repotting removes accumulated salts, so scorch is unlikely to be the cause now

    Check this next

    Look for a white crust on the compost surface or around the pot rim. Spider plants in particular accumulate salts and brown at the tips well before any other symptom appears.

    What to do now

    Stop feeding and flush the pot through with plenty of clean water, letting it drain freely to carry the salts out. Scrape any crust off the surface first. Do not respond by feeding more.

    source

    Sourced guidancemoderate confidence

    • Royal Horticultural Society: Fertiliser damage — recovery

    Checked 2026-08-13

  2. Pot-bound

    Candidate 2common on this plant
    source

    Sourced guidancemoderate confidence

    • Royal Horticultural Society: Potting on

    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 root-bound plant dries out within a day or two of watering, because there is far more root than compost
    • · this is a container problem
    • · every leaf is served by the same overcrowded root system

    Argues against it

    • · it has just been repotted, so it is not short of root room — this rules it out entirely.

    Check this next

    Slide the plant out of its pot and look at the sides of the root ball. A solid mat of circling roots with little compost visible means it needs potting on; roots running loosely through compost do not.

    What to do now

    Pot on into a container only slightly larger, using fresh compost. A large pot of wet compost around a small root ball causes the opposite problem, so go up one size rather than several.

    source

    Sourced guidancehigh confidence

    • Royal Horticultural Society: Potting on

    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.

Work through it for your spider plant

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 spider plant — 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 brown, crisp leaf tips page lists causes across all plants, and the Spider plant profile lists the problems it is prone to.