Areca palm is a decorative plant primarily appealing indoors that will enhance any decor.
While it is easy to maintain, it takes some work to maintain its lovely appearance.
Some aspects that an Areca plant is dying are drooping and yellow fronds, brown tips, and leaves dropping.
Drooping is hazardous in Areca palm as it can cause wilting, which may kill the plant.
The most common reasons for drooping are inadequate watering frequency and volume, either overwatering or underwatering, not enough air humidity, and if there is a pest on the plant suckling the Areca palm fluids.
The good news is that areca palm drooping can usually be recovered! You will need to provide the perfect conditions for the tree to recover, such as the optimal humidity level, a potting mix with good drainage, an appropriate watering schedule, and be pest-free.
What Causes a Droopy Areca Palm?
Areca palm drooping can have a variety of causes.
Droopy leaves hanging down from the stem are a clear message from the plant indicating that it has a problem, and the problem is that either you haven’t supplied enough water or you haven’t supplied enough humidity.
Various common causes of drooping are over-watering, under-watering, or humidity.
| Causes Of A Droopy Areca Palm | How To Address Causes Of A Droopy Areca Palm? |
|---|---|
| Overwatering and underwatering. | Change your watering schedule and try to keep the soil wet but not waterlogged. Repot using a well-draining potting mix and a pot with drainage holes. |
| Low humidity level. | You may place the plant in a tray half-filled with gravel and half-full water; spray/mist the leaves at least once a day or place a humidifier near the plant. |
| Pest infestations. | Get rid of pests by misting the leaves. Rub or rinse the palm tree with alcohol, neem oil, insecticidal soaps, warm soapy water, and a pyrethrin-based repellant or a professional insect remover. |
Droopy Areca Palm Causes
Overwatering and Underwatering Droopy Areca Palm
Lack of water is the most common reason for droopy leaves. Droopy leaves are usually one of the first signs that a plant has either too dry of soil, or too damp.
When the Areca Palm does not have enough moisture in its soil, it can cause limp leaves.
Like all other plants, the Areca Palm loses water through its leaves and will need to replenish it by pulling that water through the roots.
Unfortunately, underwatered soil does not have enough water for the roots to replace the lost moisture, resulting in the droopy leaves.
Too much water can also cause droopy leaves. When there is excessive water, or just heavy soil that cannot drain properly, the roots become suffocated and can not pull in water and nutrients properly.
Excess water drowns out any air pockets in the soil that the roots may use to collect oxygen. When this occurs, the roots lose the ability to absorb moisture and nutrients.
WHAT TO DO: If you overwatered your palm tree, you should attempt to rescue your plant immediately after realizing. If you leave your palm tree in wet soil, you may induce fungal root rot, which kills your plant and may never allow you to recover it.
Humidity
The best humidity for Areca palm plants in the house is when it is 40% to 50%.
If the humidity is higher or lower than the ideal range, Areca palm leaves will be droopy, and the tips of the leaves will turn brown.
Pest Infestations of Areca Palm
If the water and humidity issue appears to not be the source of the problem, check the plants for insect activity.
An insect infestation can also lead to droopy leaves. If too many insects suck fluids from your plant, it experiences the same loss of internal pressure as having soil that is too dry.
The leading indoor plant pests cause drooping are all sap sucking insects, including aphids, scale, mealybugs, and spider mites.
Insect infestations can quickly destroy a plant’s leaves, leading to droopy leaves and possibly death.
Can a Drooping Areca Palm Come Back To Life? (How To Save Drooped Areca Palm?)
If properly cared for, Areca palms can be spared from additional drooping, withering, or death:
- To begin with, try to identify the circumstances that caused the plant to droop. It might have something to do with humidity or frequency of watering.
- Then check to see that the soil for the plant is healthy and appropriate to allow the plant to heal itself.
Maintaining Humidity
To maintain the fresh look of your Areca palm, you will need high humidity.
You can purchase a hygrometer if you want to gauge the humidity of your plant’s surroundings.
If humidity is a problem, you can put the plant in a tray with gravel and fill it halfway with water.
You can also mist the leaves at least once a day to keep humidity at a good level for your Areca plant. You can raise humidity even more by using a humidifier next to the plant.
If humidity is an issue, you can use a tray with gravel halfway filled with water. You can also mist the leaves at least once a day to maintain good humidity for your Areca palm.
Works well: you can raise humidity even more by placing a humidifier next to the plant.
Watering Correctly
The watering schedule causes the Areca palm drooping.
Every time you can to water them, check the soil and check how much water you pour into it. The best approach to keep the palm healthy is to monitor its watering needs.
In the spring and summer, wait until enough time has passed to keep the soil slightly damp. During fall and winter, try to keep the soil slightly dry as the plant is generally semi-dormant.
However, if you allow the soil to dry completely, the Areca Palm will droop and wilt. It is a thirsty plant and will need water on a regular basis.
Underwatering could also cause the fronds to droop too, but, on the positive side, once they are saturated, they will stand back up again.
What If the Leaves Fall Off
If you notice the leaves of the palm are beginning to drop, you should change the watering schedule as soon as possible to limit the damage to the plant.
Try to keep your Areca Palm’s soil moist at all times but never saturated. You can set a water saucer underneath your plant pot for drainage.
Although Areca Palm needs to be watered often, plants can be overwatered. The golden palm is susceptible to overwatering which will pull its leaves down and droop.
If nothing is done, leaves will ultimately drop off.
Poor draining potting mix can also lead to a waterlogged condition. Please check that the pot has adequate drainage holes and that the potting mix drains well.
If not, re-pot the plant in a new container and fresh potting soil.
Checking the Roots
To check for rot if you suspect your plant is dying due to over-watering.
Rot tends to manifest as mushy roots and a rotten foul odor. Healthy roots tend to be firm and white.
You can use horticultural hydrogen peroxide that will provide roots with full doses of oxygen.
Once you have given heavy rain or a thorough watering, make sure to repot your palms into fresh soil of a good blend and appropriately sized pot with adequate drainage holes.
Also, adding peat moss or perlite to the topsoil of your plants can help drainage:
- Take the plant out of the pot, then clean the dirt from its roots and inspect its roots. You can trim off any roots that are less than good – I marked the bad roots with B in the diagram below.
- Next, in a container, soak the roots for an hour in a solution that consists of 1-quart water (660F) and 1 oz of hydrogen peroxide.
- Alternately, add 2 1/2 tablespoons of 3% hydrogen peroxide to one gallon and only water the plant with this water until it recovers.
Mitigating Pests
If you see any sort of webbing on the plants, or little speckles on the leaves, you likely have a spider mite infestation.
You may be able to eliminate them simply by misting the plants with water since these bugs are attracted to dusty conditions.
If misting does not work, instead, try rubbing alcohol, neem oil, insecticidal soaps, or rinsing the plants in warm soapy water using a pyrethrin-based plant (you can buy at the local garden or hardware store).
If needed, you can repeat this process every two to three days, since some pests seem harder to eliminate than others.
Be Creative! If it still does not work, visit your local plant or hardware store and try a professional insect eliminator.
Final Thoughts
The first step in trying to revive a droopy or dying Areca is to search for the cause of the problem.
Common causes of drooping can include overwatering, underwatering, or air humidity. If the Areca palm is not revived in time, it will die from drooping.
The sooner you can correct the issues you discovered, the better your chance of saving the palm plant and keeping it from dropping in the future too!