Why Do Indoor Plants Lose Leaves?

Indoor plants play an important part in creating a pleasant, healthful, and happy indoor living space. Their color and foliage offer a beautiful green accent to a room and also offer many different health benefits to those around them. In order for these green friends to do their air-cleansing job, they themselves must be happy and healthy. But, what can be done when indoor plants are not in good health and begin to drop their leaves?

Dropping leaves is a plant’s response to unfavorable conditions that allows them to adjust. It can be caused by many different factors, including age, growing environment, temperature, soil moisture, or sunlight. The dropping of some leaves is common as older plants complete their life-cycle and gradually decline, but normal leaf loss is sporadic and usually only affects the older leaves. Abnormal leaf loss can be quite devastating to the appearance and health of indoor plants.

How can you help your indoor plants? Here are a few tips to help prevent or counteract the discoloration and loss of indoor plant leaves:

• Improper watering, fluctuations in temperature, pest attacks, soil, and nutrition problems all put healthy plants in situations where development is difficult and causes stress and can cause leaves to drop. It is important to figure out which factor your plant is not happy with and to adjust the plant’s environment accordingly.
• To prevent leaf loss from younger leaves throughout the leaf canopy, be sure to check the plant regularly for pests. It is also important that the plant is properly irrigated and fertilized at the right time and time frame. Avoid under- or over-watering.
• Do you know the specific light intensity that your plant requires? Placing a low light plant in a highly lit area and a high light plant in a shady area could cause major problems. Ensure that your plant is place in the right intensity of light for its unique needs.
• Is the air too dry in your home? Dry environments and in some instances air conditioning/heating may create this problem. If your potted plant is too dry try placing plants together in a group to conserve humidity.

When you see your indoor plants dropping leaves, don’t panic. Remember that is a reaction to their indoor environment. If you have questions or concerns about your indoor plants, contact the plant experts at Everything Grows for information about our plant maintenance services.