So you have probably seen this plant on a top-five list of low light house plants or plants that even a black thumb can take care of, it’s a peace lily and in this article, we’re gonna be repotting and propagating this peace lily plant.
Peace lily also commonly known as spathiphyllum are excellent plants because they’re good air purifiers and they are also hardy plants. These are evergreen Perennial plants. Peace lily will live for around 3-5 years on average.
These plants have large leaves and they have flowers that grow in spadix. The peace lily belongs to the Araceae family.
So before we actually start repotting and propagating let’s go over some general requirements for peace lilies.
How to care for Peace lily (Spathiphyllum general care guide)
- Peace lilies can tolerate low light they prefer or thrive best in bright and direct light.
- Spathiphyllum (peace lily) also prefers moist soil, but they can generally tolerate slightly drying out of it.
- Speaking of soil they’re gonna be able to tolerate almost any type of soil so as long as the pH is neutral you’ll be fine. So a regular potting mix is fine.
- Peace lily prefers a warm and humid environment but they can generally tolerate like you know a slightly cooler and low humidity one – like if you have it’s inside during the winter or whatever it’ll be fine.
- And as nutrients go, a normal fertilizing regiment will pretty much do, so that means like more in the summer and definitely less or none during the winter. But to follow the directions in your indoor fertilizer. All right so let’s start repotting.
How to repot a peace lily (Spathiphyllum)
Start by massaging the outside of the container.
Then hold on to the bottom of the container and hold on to the base of the plant.
Now just give it a good tug and just pull.
The peace lily plant I am using for this article was fairly easy to remove because of the roots (it was like 95% roots in there).
So most of the time you’re gonna find the healthiest roots on the outskirts or the edges of the container because of a few factors that just had up over time.
One reason is that when roots grow they’re just gonna keep going until they bump up against something okay and then they start redirecting themselves or reach a certain length. That’s why you kind of generally see the roots start spiraling around the bottom of a container.
So air is also another factor it’s also more prevalent along the edges of the container because as the soil dries it starts from the outside and works its way in and that’s why you’ll generally see soil starts separating from the edges of the container and the roots that are on the edges of the container, one side is getting air and then one side of the root is getting the moisture from within the soil and it gots the best of both worlds.
During this repotting process, this is the best time for you to just really get in there and remove all the dead foliage and it’s also the best time is to ease and score and break up all the old roots so you could promote some new growth.
So at first I was just planning on removing all the old soil and replace it with my own mix so I could preserve the fullness because I wanted this to go into a special container actually.
But then I realized that I’m gonna split it up. I’m gonna have two plants and each one will have the opportunity to grow full on its own and over time it’s just gonna be full anyway, which then leads us to how to propagate a spathiphyllum.
How to propagate peace lily (Spathiphyllum)
So to propagate a peace lily (spathiphyllum) we’re gonna need to use a method called division and we do this because a spathiphyllum’s root system is rhizomatous.
And rhizomes are basically horizontal plant stems that grow sideways underground and are capable of having their own root and shoots systems. These rhizomes also store starches and nutrients for the plant.
So an easy way to think about this system is to do is cut in between the nodes or clusters.
So in peace lily (Spathiphyllum) the nodes or cluster they’re gonna be a lot closer than they are on a regular vining plant, but the idea is still the same all you have to do is divide those clusters, so separate it. You could use a knife or you could use your scissors. What I like to do is just feel it and just break it apart.
And as long as you end up getting a root with one of the clusters then you’re pretty much good. But just in case that you accidentally took one and oh my god it doesn’t have a root it may actually still be able to grow because the cool thing about rhizomes is that as long as you have a piece of rhizome it has the potential to grow roots.
So you could think about it like it’s a cutting or something, so this part is pretty fun and a little intimidating when I was starting out so it’s okay just go slowly and it’s actually really fun and you’ll start feeling it and you’ll get better.
Placing in a new container
Now you’re done dividing and just pot it up as you normally would. So here I’m just using my own normal mix this is my 50% potting mix like 49% foyer and the rest being vermiculite, perlite, some sand, and some tree bark and stuff.
I pot it up into two smaller pots and I think it was pretty okay.
Give it a very good shower after you’re done repotting and then you can put it into your specialized container.
So that’s it for the article. I hope you guys enjoyed it, I hope you guys learn something. leave me a comment below telling me your care tips for peace lily (spathiphyllum). Happy Gardening!
