Why Does My Yucca Have Brown Foliage?

Is your yucca planted somewhere in bright sunlight?

Have you been watering your yucca often?

Have you been using water from the tap when watering?

Does the soil where your yucca is planted have a high salinity level?

Was the weather wet before leaves started browning?

Yucca plants thrive in full sun. They will warn you of low lighting conditions by becoming a brighter green, then yellowing and browning if insufficient light persists.

Because yuccas are desert plants, it’s hard to water them too little but watering too much is easy and quickly leads to root rot. If your plant is small enough to dig, check the roots. They should be firm and white or cream-colored, but not black or squishy. If that’s what you find, cut away the damaged roots, repot your plant in a container or garden spot with good drainage and water only when the top two inches of soil are dry.

When your yucca plant has brown tips, it’s likely due to fluoride toxicity. This issue generally starts as small brown spots on leaf margins but soon encompasses the entire leaf tip. It’s especially bad on older leaves. Fluoride toxicity usually doesn't cause serious problems, but it does make a yucca look unsightly. Switching to distilled water will solve this problem.

Too much salt in the soil will cause stunted growth, browning tips, and leaf margins, and other leaf-related issues. In very salty conditions, a white crust may form at the surface of the soil. You can attempt to flush the soil with salt-free water, but unless you act quickly, your yucca may be beyond saving.

Wet weather is perfect for fungal leaf spots to take infect yucca leaves. The fungal pathogens involved will cause spotting, often with a yellow halo, but rarely damage whole leaves. Remove damaged leaves and spray the plant with a copper fungicide as long as the weather is moist to prevent the spread of fungal spores to non-infected leaves.

Yucca plant leaves turning brown can be a normal part of their lifecycle, providing the browning leaves are the oldest and closest to the ground. If leaves higher in the plant are also browning, you’ve got a different problem.