Curling means your calathea is losing water faster than it can take it up. The leaf rolls inward to expose less surface to the air, the same thing a plant does in a drought. Six or seven different problems set that off, and dry soil is only one of them. Roots rotting in soil that never dried out produce the same curl. So start at the pot rather than the leaf. The calathea care guide covers the day-to-day side, light and feeding and water quality, if that's what brought you here.
First, check whether it's just the nightly fold
Calatheas are prayer plants, the same family as maranta, and they move on a daily rhythm. Leaves lift and fold together in the evening, then open flat again the next morning, driven by water pressure in a swollen joint at the base of each leaf stalk. A plant doing this is healthy. Not every type does it, though. Calathea medallion, one of the most common on shop shelves, tends to skip the evening fold, so read nothing into a medallion that stays open.
Once you know what to compare, the two are easy to tell apart:
- Normal. The whole leaf folds upward along the midrib, like a closing book, and it's open again by mid-morning.
- A problem. The edges roll inward toward the center and stay rolled all day, often with the leaf angled downward.
Then check the soil, before anything else
Push a finger about an inch (2.5 cm) into the potting mix, near the edge of the pot rather than the stems. For what's happening lower down, slide a wooden skewer to the bottom of the pot and see how far up it comes out damp, or just lift the pot and go by weight once you know what it feels like full and empty. Ask one more question while you're there: is the pot drying slower than it used to? Roots that have started to die take up less water, so the mix stays damp longer, and that shift often shows up before the roots themselves look bad.
| What the soil feels like | Most likely cause | First move |
|---|---|---|
| Dry most of the way down, pot light | Underwatering | Water thoroughly, then recheck the leaves in two days |
| Damp, drying at its usual rate | Dry air, heat, or too much direct light | Raise humidity, move it off the hot spot |
| Damp but drying slower than it used to | Roots starting to fail | Skip the watering can, look at the roots |
| Soggy, and has been for a while | Root rot from overwatering | Get it out of the pot and look at the roots |
That check matters more with a calathea than with most houseplants, because the plant curls for both too little water and too much of it. For the checks that work across species, see overwatered or underwatered?
The most common cause: the pot dried out
Water a calathea once the top inch (2.5 cm) has dried but the mix below is still faintly damp. Never let the whole pot go dry, and never leave it sitting wet. The gap between those two is narrower than most houseplants ask for, and it's the opposite of the soak-and-dry cycle that succulents need. Let the root ball dry out completely in a warm room and the leaves curl in short order.
What to do:
- Water slowly until it runs out of the drainage hole, then tip out whatever collects in the saucer.
- If the mix has pulled away from the sides of the pot and the water runs straight through, stand the pot in an inch or two (3–5 cm) of water for 20 to 30 minutes so the root ball can rewet from below, then lift it out and let it drain.
- Check the leaves again after a day or two. If nothing has started to relax, stop watering and look at the roots. A plant with rotted roots reads thirsty however wet the pot is.
- Going forward, check by touch every few days instead of watering on a fixed day. In fall and winter let a little more of the surface dry before you water again, without letting the pot go dry all the way through.
Curling with damp soil: the air is too dry
When the soil is damp and drying at its normal pace, look at the air. Calatheas come from tropical forest floors and want humidity above about 60%. Most heated or air-conditioned rooms sit well under that, and the drier the air, the faster the leaf loses water through its pores. Curling throttles that loss, and brown, crisp edges and tips usually come with it.
How to raise it is where advice splits. Misting the foliage and standing the pot on wet gravel are the usual suggestions, and plenty of growing guides still give them. The case against them is solid: humidity around a misted leaf drops back within minutes, wet foliage stays wet long enough to invite leaf spot, and a gravel tray's moisture mostly diffuses into the room instead of staying with the plant. Calatheas get leaf spot readily enough on their own, so that last risk is worth avoiding. Nothing beats a room humidifier. A bathroom or kitchen with decent light does much the same job, and grouping plants close together gives a small lift.
While you're at it, look at what the plant is sitting next to. Calatheas do best somewhere stable between roughly 65–75 °F (18–24 °C), and cold drafts, radiators, and forced-air vents all dry a leaf out faster than the roots can keep up with.
Curling with soggy soil: the roots have gone
Rotted roots curl and wilt a plant exactly the way thirst does, which is why people get this one backwards and water more. Soil that stays saturated pushes the air out, roots suffocate, and fungi finish them off. Rotted roots can't move water, so the leaves behave as though the pot were bone dry no matter how much you add.
Check the saucer or outer pot first, since standing water there keeps the mix saturated on its own. Then slide the plant out and look. Healthy roots are firm and pale, with fine feeding roots along them. Rotted roots are brown or black, soft, and slip apart between your fingers. Trim the dead ones off with clean scissors and repot into fresh, airy mix, coir or fine bark with plenty of perlite, in a pot no larger than the old one. Go a size smaller if you removed much of the root system, because soil the roots can't reach just stays wet. Skip fertilizer for a month while new roots form.
Less common causes
- Too much direct sun. Calatheas want bright but indirect light. A few hours of direct sun scorches the leaves and drives water loss past what the roots can supply, so the leaf curls and fades. An east-facing window, or a few feet back from a brighter one, suits them.
- Tap water. Calatheas are among the houseplants named as fluoride-sensitive, though minerals of every kind concentrate at the leaf tip and margin, so flush the pot before you conclude it's the tap. Letting water stand overnight is the usual shortcut, and it does deal with chlorine, though many utilities now use chloramine instead, which doesn't off-gas the same way. If brown edges keep coming back after a flush, collected rain or distilled water settles it. Softened water is the one to rule out completely, since softeners work by adding sodium.
- Fertilizer salt buildup. Once a month through spring and summer, at half the label strength, is plenty. Feeding harder than that leaves mineral salts in the mix. Those salts slow water into the roots and kill root tips, which is how they end up curling leaves as well as burning their edges. A white crust on the soil or the rim of the pot is the giveaway. Flush the pot with plain water until it drains freely, a few times over.
- Spider mites. They thrive in the warm, dry air that stresses a calathea in the first place, and they hit water-stressed plants hardest. Turn a few leaves over and look for pale stippling, a bronze cast, and fine webbing on the undersides. Rinse the foliage with lukewarm water every few days, in the morning so it dries off quickly. If you move to insecticidal soap or horticultural oil, water the plant first and don't spray one that's still wilting or sitting in direct sun. Test a single leaf and wait a day before doing the whole plant, because calathea foliage is thin and scorches easily.
The quick checklist
- Leaves fold up in the evening and open by morning → normal, leave it alone.
- Edges rolled all day, pot light and dry well below the surface → water thoroughly, then check again in two days.
- Edges rolled, soil damp, tips brown and crisp → the air is too dry.
- Edges rolled, soil soggy → check the roots for rot.
- Faded, scorched-looking leaves in a sunny window → move it out of direct sun.
- Brown tips that persist after the humidity and watering are sorted → flush the pot, then try rainwater or distilled water.
- Pale stippling and webbing under the leaves → spider mites.
Common questions
Is it normal for a calathea to curl up at night?
Yes, and it's a good sign. Calatheas are prayer plants, so they raise and fold their leaves in the evening and open them again in the morning, responding to the drop in light at the end of the day. Calathea medallion is one type that often skips it entirely. The problem version stays put: the edges roll inward toward the midrib and are still rolled in the middle of the day.
Will curled calathea leaves flatten out again?
Usually, as long as the leaf is still green and pliable. Curling is a pressure response, so a leaf that curled because the pot went dry often relaxes once the root ball is thoroughly rewetted. Curling caused by dry air follows the air rather than the watering can, so that one takes longer and only holds if the humidity does. A leaf that has been rolled for weeks may never flatten out, and tissue that has already gone brown and crisp stays that way. Judge the recovery by the new leaves instead.
Should I cut the curled leaves off?
Not while they're green. A curled leaf is still feeding the plant, and many calatheas are slow to replace one you take off. Trim off crisp brown margins if you want it to look tidier, or cut the whole leaf back at the base once it's mostly dead.
Do I need a humidifier for a calathea?
It's the most reliable way to keep the air above 60% humidity, which is where these plants are comfortable. Misting gets suggested a lot, but the humidity bump around a misted leaf lasts only minutes, and wet foliage raises the risk of leaf spot. Grouping plants together helps a little, but a humidifier or a naturally humid room is what actually holds the humidity up.
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This article was researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor before publishing. How we use AI