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Do you believe the myth about dying leaves “stealing” energy from plants? It’s utter bullsh*t. (Hi! Veronica here, from the Houseplant Coach (the 280+ episode podcast), owner of Oh Happy Plants, inventor of the best damn soil your houseplants ever tasted, and otherwise completely irreverent weirdo having nerdgasms all over the internet about plants and small business and whatnot!) Okay: I’m a THOUSAND percent against believing everything you see online. So I’m gonna explain myself The main point: NATURE DOESN’T MAKE MISTAKES. The foundation of all the info I share is that we can trust nature to know what it’s doing. Plants have evolved to survive, so all of these behaviors have a purpose. Note: occasionally we do need to recognize that the fact that we remove these plants from the environment they’re adapted to will cause plants to need a bit of extra care from us, but usually that just means taking actions to make our home more like their native jungle, or wherever they’re from, rather than ‘fixing’ the plant by doing something to it to interrupt its natural process. The goal is to assist the natural processes and respond to the information their adaptive behaviors give us rather than trying to change the plant (because we can’t). What’s the most common reason for leaf yellowing? If you’ve been in online plant groups or learned about houseplants from most of the blogs out there, you may believe that the answer is “overwatering” most of the time. I’ve even been in houseplant stores (the boutique kind, where people assume anyone working there knows a lot about plants) and overheard staff tell customers that the biggest issue with houseplants is “overwatering” - without explaining anything about what they mean or how plants work. I’ve heard this happen more than ten times - and I don’t even spend much time in houseplant shops. Unfortunately, this is usually the wrong diagnosis - and because it’s so pervasive a myth, it leads to more and more yellow leaves due to one simple thing: Drought. Yep - the opposite of overwatering. For long-time Houseplant Coach Podcast listeners, you’ve heard me harp on this before. The phenomenon is called “firing leaves.” But first, let’s explore what happens when a plant goes too dry. When a plant experiences drought, the roots initiate the whole process. First, drought-signaling hormones go out to the rest of the plant, which basically tell it to chill, stop growing like crazy (sometimes), and hunker down. Some plants will initiate CAM - crassulacean acid metabolism - which basically means that they stop “breathing” during the day and only open stomata for gas exchange at night, when temps are cooler, so they lose less water through evaporation. These plants will still fire leaves Other plants, especially plants that grow quickly and don’t use CAM, will immediately “fire” a leaf. This means the lowest/oldest leaf goes yellow, then dry and crispy. Right here is when people start telling you to pull the leaf off because it’s “wasting” energy - here’s why that’s flat wrong: Okay, your plant is thirsty, right? So it chooses the least biologically useful leaf - the oldest - to use as a ‘water bottle.’ It actively breaks down the nutrients in that leaf and moves them to the rest of the plant, including the water in that leaf. You may see multiple yellow leaves at once, especially if there are multiple stems in one pot. If your money tree is a braided one with 5 individual stems, you’ll see the oldest leaf on EACH of those stems go yellow. Enjoying this info? Check out the Houseplant Coach Podcast on your favorite podcast player! Why the oldest leaf? Because it’s the most likely to be further from the sun, covered by older leaves, or broken/damaged (simply because it’s been alive longer). Damage could come from an errant monkey in the jungle, a wind storm, or your new puppy - it doesn’t know or care. It just did the math and picked that leaf somewhere during the evolutionary process :) Okay, how do you get your plant out of drought mode? Just water it! First, always check your plant before watering. Sometimes plants will initiate a drought response but it takes a couple days for the hormones to travel and signal drought to the rest of the plant - so you may have caught it, watered, and then noticed yellow leaves. So if you watered yesterday because your plant was bone dry, then you notice a yellow leaf today, don’t assume it’s because of the water. Often people think they “overwatered” because the plant is just slow to fire a leaf. Wait a few days (so the drought hormones stop), then remove the yellow leaf. Pro tip: if you notice drought due to yellowing leaves and remove them at the same time you water, the plant will often fire another leaf - because typically drought responses happen after the root hairs die. The plant needs a few days to re-grow root hairs and take up the water so it can turn off those drought-signaling hormones. Just relax - that yellow leaf will do its job, and you can remove it in a few days :) How do you skip drought entirely? There are a few answers! First, set yourself a schedule to CHECK your plants (not to water them - unless they need it!). Remember: the calendar is for YOU, because humans forget things. Your plant’s job is to be a plant; not to drink water according to a human-made schedule. Always check soil moisture before you water! Next, make sure your plant is set up properly! This might mean changing the soil or pot size so it holds an amount of water that’s appropriate for the plant and matches your watering style. If you have an alocasia and want to water it twice a week, you can use a smaller pot or chunkier, less water retentive mix. If you want to water that same alocasia every 3 weeks, it’ll need soil that holds more moisture, a larger pot, and possibly a wick system. This comes back to using the right products. I've got you covered there. From soils matched to your plant's needs to wicks and other tools, Oh Happy Plants has everything you need to set your plants up for success! https://ohhappyplants.shop Ships to USA via USPS/UPS, or pick up in Tacoma, WA!