Could Your Houseplant be Suffering from Salinity in the Soil?

Is your plant looking sickly and you’re baffled as to why? If you can’t figure out what is going
wrong with your houseplants, it could be high salt in the soil.
Excess salt in houseplant soil is a common problem with indoor plants that have been in the
same soil for a long time. It can also result when a houseplant has been over-fertilized.
Chemical fertilizers, in particular, are high in salts. In fact, you could buy a plant that has been
over-fertilized. Growers try to get plants to grow quickly and end up feeding them too many
chemical fertilizers in the process.
How to Spot if a Plant is Suffering from Toxic Salt Buildup
There are telltale signs of high salinity in the soil. Here they are.
1 A white crust around the upper inside edge of the pot, or white crusty buildup on the bottom
of the pot around the drainage holes.
2 White crusty buildup on the top of the soil.
3 Brown leaf tips. This would be if the plant has been well watered and not allowed to dry out.
Brown leaf tips can also be a symptom of low humidity, so you will have to rule these
possibilities out. If you do, it’s possible that high salt is the culprit.
4 The plant just looks sickly. It used to look better, but just keeps looking sicker and sicker.
How to Deal with Salt Buildup in Houseplant Soil
There are three things you can do to help a plant suffering from high salt in the soil. This video
on our YouTube channel also shows you how to do all three of the following steps.
1 Remove soil that contains salt buildup. When you remove salty soil, replace (topdress) the
soil with fresh organic potting soil. Go down about an inch when removing salty soil.
2 Rinse the plant soil. This refers to leaching. You want to run an amount of water through the
soil that equals at least three times the size of the plant pot. Slowly filter water through the soil,

which will help rinse out excess salt buildup. It is a good idea to do this with reverse osmosis
water, if possible, as that should be devoid of salts.
3 Repot the plant. Sometimes the soil is so salty—like the photo pictured here—that you’re
better off just repotting the plant. Take the plant out of its old pot and gently shake off the soil
and rinse the roots. Replant in fresh soil in a fresh pot.
If you want to reuse the same pot, wash it thoroughly, scrubbing off any salt buildup.
Wait about a month after dealing with high salinity in the soil to see results. Plants will
gradually put on new healthier growth.