The browning on the leaf edges in your first photo looks like drought. Your second photo is certainly the most colorful rhododendron leaf I've seen...but nothing I recognize. It's not clear to me what the insects are, but I suspect you may have more than one problem to address, cultural contitions (water) and what else, I'm not sure. I think the best thing for you to do is take a sample leaf for a visual ID as suggested earlier. I don't know exactly where you are...Seattle area, Wells in Medina has a very experienced staff (I was there just yesterday)but any full service nursery should be able to help. You can also type the name of your county, followed by extension agent office, into a search engine like google and come up with your closest extension office where they would also be able to examine a sample from your plant. Try to include one of the insects, put the leaf in a zip lock sandwich bag. And let us know....

Any plant in a pot needs repotting on a regular basis. There will be some who make the claim that a ponytail palm will "thrive" on neglect, but that is not true. That the plant will suffer a lot of abuse without succumbing to the stress cannot be taken as indication it approves of the stress. No plant does, and neglect is always accompanied by stress ...... or it isn't neglect. The most often overlooked key to a persistently healthy plant is regular repotting into a soil that won't hold enough water to be a limiting factor. At the point your plant can be lifted from the pot with the root/soil mass intact, it will benefit from a repot ...... and a repot is much different than potting up. Potting up ensures the limitations imposed by root congestion remain, where repotting eliminates entirely the limitations associated with root congestion. Over-watering in poor soils can be lethal. The idea is to use or make a soil that allows you to water to beyond the point of saturation, so you're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids (salts) when you water, this, without the plant having to pay an "over-watering tax" in the form of significant loss of potential. Tight roots can rob your plant of more than 90% of it's potential as the congestion reaches the critical stage. All the succulents, trees, and most houseplants I grow are grown in this medium: Best luck! Al

Hi, I also have the exact same problem. Would love to know if either of you figured this out! I did find some spider mites on my plant and have been treating it for them, but I'm not sure if that's just another problem or the reason why. I also did worry that mine was getting burned in the sun, but from everything I read, they are supposed to be very tolerant of direct sunlight. Thank you!

Hey, I’m also new to owning a bird of paradise but did quite a bit of research to give it the best environment! If you’re certain it’s getting enough water from it’s roots system, it may be a lack of humidity? They’re quite thirsty plants I find, that do best with high humidity or a regular mist, so the radiator behind it (if this is it’s usual spot?) could be drying the air around it too much. As I said, also pretty new to this so may be wrong but clocking the radiator was my first thought.