Dracaena brown tips? Fluoride in your tap water is the usual cause.
Corn plants, marginatas, Janet Craigs and lucky bamboo all share one weakness: fluoride. It's in most US tap water at a level people never notice and dracaenas can't tolerate. The brown tips are the plant keeping score.
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Is it your water?
Tips and margins brown and the browning creeps slowly inward over weeks.
The plant is otherwise healthy — good color, new growth, firm cane.
You water from a city tap; your spider plant or peace lily has brown tips too.
Two of three and it's the water:
Why dracaenas are the canary
Dracaena fluoride sensitivity is so well established that growers use these plants to detect it. Fluoride accumulates at the leaf tip and margin where transpiration ends, kills the tissue, and leaves a dry brown edge with a yellow halo.
Three sources add up: fluoridated tap water, perlite in the potting mix (it can leach fluoride), and phosphate fertilizers. The water is the one you control every week.
Chlorine and chloramine add root stress on top, and softened water adds sodium. Letting water sit removes some chlorine and nothing else.
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Three steps to clean new growth
Switch to filtered, remineralized water tonight — the filter removes fluoride, which sitting water never will.
This is the single change that stops new fluoride from arriving at the leaf tips.
Flush the pot once to move accumulated fluoride and salts out of the soil.
Water slowly until it drains freely; repeat with a second can to rinse the root zone.
Trim brown tips to the leaf's shape; new leaves will come in clean.
Follow the natural leaf line and leave a tiny margin of brown so the cut doesn't spread.
What else it could be
Over-watering makes a dracaena's lower leaves yellow and the cane soft — different look, different fix. Direct sun bleaches and scorches whole leaves. Cold water on the roots can brown tips too; room temperature is right.
Frequently asked questions.
Better water, tonight's watering.
- $69 · Free shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee
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