i apologize for the lengthy description about to follow, but i find it necessary because, while i only began keeping simple/easy houseplants two years ago, the story of this peace
lily now has complications surpassing the success of my (now 17) other
plants.
-this was the second
plant i ever had, and i got it two years ago.
-i quickly learned that it would do well in a dark spot and that i could water it when it wilted to keep it happiest. it thrived in a dark, dark kitchen that received, yes, southern sun, but only for a brief time each day.
-when we moved this summer, a neighbor kept it for one month on her north-facing (but semi-roofed) balcony, which entailed a huge change to much more sun, wind, etc.
-the neighbor attempted to impress me by heavily, heavily watering this
plant when i visited two or three times.
-by the time i finally could retrieve it, this peace
lily had clearly been through "shock". however, it seemed to have begun some adaptation and was doing ok all things considered.
-when i got it to the new home (beginning of october, but we have had a strangely temperate and even summer-like fall here), my initial thought was to return it to a similar dark space such as it had last year. the closest lighting at the time (and now) actually has a north-facing lighting that is of similar weakness to our old kitchen's south lighting.
-the
lily was sopping wet (and at this time i bought my first moisture gauge.) it looked like it was almost dying, but i cut the dead leaves and waited for a few weeks.
-the
plant then looked near-dead (after 2-3 weeks), and although the bottom 4 inches of the soil (10 inch pot) were still registering as "wet" on the guage, i cut it back drastically and watered it...thinking "well, i havent watered this thing in weeks. after all its a
lily. maybe the soil has been wet, but..."
-OOOPs! i forgot to mention that i had just repotted it 1 1/2 months before abandoning it with my neighbor! it did well after (for that month and a half) but...
-anyway, the last drastic cutting and watering served it well! the remaining stems/leaves perked-up and we got one serious new growth.
-then, a week later, it started to look like the pictures i include here. i have moved it to a sunnier west window (in hopes that it will dry out some as its pot is plastic) if only because its location assures that i will pay more attention to it.
-the dirt on top of the soil in the pictures is just a dusting of new potting soil from a different
plant recently planted from cuttings that suffered a fall from a higher shelf this last week, and so please dont judge too much from soil-heighth, etc. i didnt clean the spilled soil out of this
lily's pot because i am on the verge of digging it out to look for rot.
thanks for reading! sorry so lengthy! what do you think?