If you’re wondering what has caused your Snake Plant to develop brown tips then it is time to take an in depth look at what you’re doing wrong.
The vast majority of time, Snake plants with brown tips are not being properly taken care of and below are some common reasons why this is happening.
Snake Plant is not frost tolerant
Probably the very most common reason why your Snake plant succulent has developed brown tips is due to being left outside in extreme cold conditions.
Especially if it is near freezing or lower outdoors as your plant cannot handle these weather conditions and should be brought indoors to grow if the weather commonly gets like this.
Even if the temperature is in the mid to high 40’s, you run the risk of your Snake plant getting a sort of frostbite which will then in turn cause brown tips.
Unfortunately the damage to your leaves are permanent and will have to be pruned if you want them to go away.
Don’t worry though, when brought back to normal conditions, more leaves will still continue to grow and replace the ones that were damaged.
Pro tip: If you cant bring the plant indoors, use a quality mini greenhouse instead.
Overwatering will damage your Snake Plant
When watering your snake plant, you only should be watering when the soil has dried out near completely to prevent sitting water for too long.
Overwatering will be the main watering issue that will cause brown tips on a Snake plant but other things like sudden shock of watering can also cause this to happen.
I’m not a big fan of exact watering schedules, but you shouldn’t suddenly shock your plant with excess water if you have been neglecting it for some time.
Instead try to stay as consistent as possible and just water when the soil has dried out completely while leaning more towards the underwatered side.
Oh and don’t forget to use high quality soil since that can also cause your snake plant to become overwatered or waterlogged.
This will be your best bet at preventing overwatering from raining havoc on your Snake plant.
Otherwise you can expect to see yellow leaves on your Snake plant or even worse, your Snake plant can get root rot.
For a full guide on how to deal with root rot, I recommend checking out my article on Snake plant root rot so you can save your plant!
Fertilizing Snake plant at the wrong time
We all know too much fertilizer is never really a good thing for succulents but another problem is doing it at the wrong time.
Fertilizing the Snake plant during the winter or during extreme cold is just asking for trouble and frankly a waste of time in my opinion.
When trying to fertilize the snake plant during cold temperatures, you run the risk of giving your plant ammonium toxicity which could be just the reason why you have noticed brown tips.
Instead you should only fertilize sparingly and only during the spring and summer months for the best growth to occur.
Pests on your Snake Plant
We all know that pests can become a huge problem for succulents in general but more specifically when they are on your snake plant.
Mealy bugs can seriously dry out the leaves of your snake plant succulent which will then in turn cause brown tips to occur.
These pests can also cause a drooping snake plant due to the dehydration in the leaves.
Like mentioned before, the damage to your leaves are already done and you will have to remove them or just wait for new ones to grow.
In the meantime, keep an eye out for these pests so you can avoid this from happening in the future.
To actually get rid of these pests you will want to use some good quality neem oil weekly more or less until you don’t notice any more pest problems on your snake plant.
For a comprehensive guide on how to deal with Snake plant pests, you should check out my article on how to get rid of bugs on Snake plants.
Intense heat causes brown tips
Also one of the more common reasons why your Snake plant has brown tips can be attributed to intense heat and or light.
This is especially true if you never really acclimated your Snake plant to intense light, which is more common in the earlier stages of growth.
It could just be your Snake plant is receiving too much light all the time or it is rather intense and your plant can’t handle it.
This will cause your plants leaves to dry out and possible get sunburn which you guessed it, causes brown tips on your Snake plant.
To prevent this from happening again, slowly introduce light to your plant in daily or weekly increments to build sort of a tolerance for your succulent.
This one can be tricky compared to just avoiding fertilizer or pests so keep that in mind.
Final thoughts
By now you have a pretty good idea on what causes brown tips on your Snake plant and what you can do about it today.
Overall I hope you have found everything you needed to know so you can get back to providing great Snake plant care!