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 and/or pot 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. If the salt buildup is really bad, you'll see salt in large patches on the container--like the picture here.
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 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.