A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The House Plant Forum How Long Should I Expect My Peace Lily to Pout?

Hi there.

My mother gave me part of her Peace lily 5 days ago. I potted and watered it. Two days later it was slumped over. It still is. The leaves have not changed color, but they're just hanging over the pot limp.

I have read that dividing a Peace lily can cause this. I'm just wondering about how long it lasts. I don't expect it to make a profound turn around in a day, but does it normally take weeks? Months?

By the way, at first I'd had it about 4 feet away from an east facing window, diagonally. Tonight I moved it to about six inches to the side of the window. Along the wall where the window is installed, but beside it. Which light is better?

Your peace lily is probably a little stressed from the dividing like you stated and may need time to adjust, once it does, it should be ok. Try not to over-water but always keep the soil a little bit on the moist side at all times. I water once a week.
If yours starts to look worse and worse, it may be the soil or pot size your using.

Make sure it's not in too big a pot and staying waterlogged or drying out. (pot should only be an inch larger than (roots/root-ball) and the soil drains well.
This plant likes bright indirect, so where it looks the brightest spot without harsh sun, it should be fine.

Mine sits a little below a west window and there are a couple trees out front which help cut down on any harsh burning rays when it gets warmer.

When my grandaughter was about 2, she "discovered" my peace lily and promptly beat it almost to death. The leaves were in such bad condition that I ended up having to cut them all off. The plant put out all new leaves and was as pretty as ever. Sooo, if yours refuses to perk back up, you might try a complete pruning as a last resort. Better than a complete loss :)

Hi there.

Thanks for your input.

The pot it's in is either 4" or 4.5". It's not much bigger than the root ball. The soil it's in drains well.

Looking at it today, I am starting to consider giving it a haircut. The droopy leaves are starting to discolor.

I am so far resisting the urge to just plop it in water and grow it as a water plant.

i've doen that. but if the leaves are starting to discolor, i wouldn't. at least until you get it "settled"

Jiffy!

I'm glad you showed up. I was reading through some of the old archives about peace lilies and saw your posts. It seems that you're the peace lily queen. :-)

I will resist my persistent urgings to do anything to it. Aside from an occasional watering, I'll just leave it be for the next month or so. I'll give it time to allow the roots to get situated. In the meantime I will just clip any leaves that yellow.

Thanks everyone.

thank you.

i have one that i have been messing with for over 16 years and it has done nearly every kind of pout on me that you can imagine.

the biggest thing is to let it get a little dry before you water it. transplanted/divided peace lilies are particularly prone to root rot for some reason (over loving perhaps?)

i usually let mine get a little on the dry side, then water deeply.

Based on what I've read, I think newly divided or transplanted peace lilies are prone to rot because the roots go through a rest and regroup period. That's if I understood it correctly.

I have good news! One of the leaf stems seems to have perked up. Of course the other 15 or 20 are slumping over, but there's hope, right?

I'm wondering if the whithery looking leaves would benefit from a light misting. I know I shouldn't be getting the soil too wet right now, but the leaves are slumped so far over the rim of the pot that they're nowhere near the plant's soil.

a light misting wouldn't hurt. but it sounds like you will be losing several leaves.

I can live with losing the leaves as long as I eventually get new ones. If misting won't help save the ones I have then I won't bother. The room the plant is in is next to the bathroom, so it gets pretty humid in there. Here's a picture of it. The lone "reperked" stem is in the back. The leaf starting to yellow.

ok, don't mist. you should start to see new leaves (much smaller, but they'll catch up) in the middle or just to one side. these leaves may not perk up, but may still engage in photosynthesis as long as they are green. cut them as they get totally brown or that mottled green/yellow like the one in the middle. at that point, they become useless to the plant.

water well when it gets on the dry side.

i've brought several back from this bad, it can be done!

Hmmm.....

Well, here's an update 2 weeks later. I have about half the leaves because I removed the ones that started to yellow. The good news is that I haven't had to remove any in about a week. Plus the leaf on the left started standing up about 3 or 4 days ago. I cut the leaf that was standing in the first picture because it was yellowing.

I won't give up. I still have hope!

You can NOT allow peace lilies to go dry, period. They HATE dry soil as you can see!

Tom

Hi Tom.

Nah... I don't let it go dry. This is a piece of a peace lily that I got from my mom. It's still in shock. I think it will perk up though. She said that she has given people pieces in the past and it just takes a while sometimes.

Thanks!

looking good! i'll post a picture later today of mine that shows what the new growth will look like. i have one that you can see really well.

Thanks Jiffy. I can't wait to see it.

here are 2 pics of the same plant. you can see how the leaves are almost permanently bent. and you can see the babies coming up and one that is i guess a "teenager"?





i've had this lily over 15 years, and have divided it several times, or neglected it until it nearly died but i've always managed to save it.

oh, and please ignore the dust on it i haven't sprayed it off in a while...

LOL Jiffy, I never would have noticed the dust if you hadn't mentioned it.

Thank you for showing your pictures. This encourages me to just keep waiting for the peace lily to pull through. I'll just give it more time to get sorted out and do it's thing.

well, i think i split it this most recent time in december (seems like) i'm not real sure. but i tend to abuse my plants...

Things are improving!!

Jiffy,

Thanks for all your help. My peace lily has completely bounced back. I even have a new shoot coming up.

that is awesome! thanks for the update amanda, now, all we need is a picture of the comeback!

Here she is! :-)

wow! i'm really happy she is bouncing so well!

How do you divide peace lillies? I have three quite large ones, and I am sure that family and friends would love to have a division of them!

My experience with Peace Lilies is very limited. When my mother divided hers...

She took it out of the pot, grabbed a huge knife and chopped it into sections. She did seem to try to be mindful of the already established sections. In hind sight they were probably rhizomes. It took just over a month for my piece to recover and I lost about half the leaves in the process.

I'm not all that confident giving advice on PLs yet, so please don't do any chopping until others chime in.

I won't. I'm scared to do that! LOL