log.nikhil.io

I have a dying peace lily. I’m a bit attached to it and don’t know that I’ll be able to save it. Searching the internet for any hope led me to this post (cached) which made me feel slightly better about my inexperience.

The first mistake is relying upon the plant’s visual cue that needs water: the leaves droop. But, as the post notes, this can happen when they’re both over and under-watered!

[…] This would be a good indicator of when to water, except that by the time things reach the point of laying flat, damage has been done: the roots die back slightly each time this happens, and if it happens often enough, it will eventually fail to come back at all.

[…] it’s difficult to get the watering just right. […] If it’s too wet, there’s a tendency for plants to rot where they sit, except that they do it in such a way that you don’t necessarily realize what’s going on. One day you go to pull off a dead leaf, and a whole rootless plant comes out. This will generally not be salvageable. To make things trickier, the plant (like a lot of other plants) responds to being too wet by – you guessed it – drooping, which would make an inexperienced grower think that it needs more water.

I think I ruined mine by transferring it to a larger pot, thinking I was ‘suffocating’ it in a smaller one.

However, it’s been my experience that, nine times out of ten, a peace lily with black leaf edges is suffering from root suffocation, either because its soil has broken down and compacted, or because part of the soil never gets to dry out. Especially in a very large pot, and especially especially in a plant that’s been overpotted (put in a pot that’s too large for the plant), and especially especially especially in a plant that’s in a very large pot, too big for the plant, with no drainage hole, the top of the soil can dry out while everything after the top three inches is soaking wet.

Contrary to marketing material, they are not easy beginner plants:

In the time I’ve been at Garden Web (since Dec. 2006), I’ve seen more people post about issues with their peace lilies than any other plant, no contest: too many marketers think that the only important thing about a plant is how much light it needs. It’s true that Spathiphyllum doesn’t require a lot of light; that doesn’t make it the best plant for you, any more than knowing Jennifer Anniston’s name makes her your best friend.

So what does one do?

Common sense is important. If your plant is droopy and the soil feels wet, the plant is obviously not drooping because it’s too dry: don’t give it water. If the plant looks fine and the soil feels dry, the plant doesn’t need water just because the soil is dry: wait for the leaves to get a little limp first. Spathiphyllums are nothing if not good communicators.

And don’t worry about humidity. And use progressively larger pots. I think mine is too far gone at this point 😔