3 Best Fertilizer for Peace Lily that are Homemade Fertilizers

Peace lily thrives well if you provide water-soluble balanced fertilizer with sufficient light and water. Apart from adding aesthetic appeal with white flowers, peace lilies can purify the air with its dark green foliage.

So, what is the best fertilizer for the peace lily plant?

Is it organic fertilizer or synthetic fertilizer with a balanced NPK ratio?

To grow a successful and healthy peace lily plant, you must provide balanced fertilizer with an NPK ratio of 20-20-20. A water-soluble fertilizer after 6-8 weeks is best to fertilize your peace lily plant.

Nitrogen-rich fertilizers promote the overall growth of the plant and also help to improve the foliage. But, anything excess than required will impact the formation of flowers.

To become a successful gardener you must gauge the required frequency and quality of fertilizers.

The peace lily plant is one among those houseplants that thrive even in low-light spaces like office cabins and living rooms.

Though fertilizing plants helps them produce alluring foliage, excess does harm to this houseplant.

While some people grow peace lilies outdoors, others take extra measures and plant them indoors, perhaps near a window, which is a viable option.

But, have you ever wondered, how is fertilization important for peace lilies? Or, why do peace lilies need fertilization at all?

Is it fine if we do not add fertilizers to peace lilies now and then?

What are some of the best fertilizers for peace lilies?

If these are some of the many questions that you are worried about, don’t be!

In the preceding article, we would be taking an elaborated view of the need for fertilizers for peace lilies, what are some of the best fertilizers for peace lilies, and lastly, some small concluding tips to help you maintain the charm of peace lilies for a long.

Also Read: Best Potting Soil for Peace Lily

Importance of Fertilizers for Peace Lilies

Why does peace lily require fertilizers?

As the plant grows it sheds old leaves, to compensate for the loss of those leaves and encourage quick growth, you must ensure the plants get extra nutritional boost.

Due to regular watering magnesium and other micronutrients can be leached from the soil. Adding well-balanced fertilizers will enrich plant soil with macro and micronutrients.

You don’t have to fertilize peace lily in winter. Due to low light and reduced temperature, the plant undergoes slow growth.

However, in summer you enriching them with liquid fertilizers will keep the peace lily plant healthy.

If you think only nutrient-rich potting soil mix is enough to enrich the plant, and you don’t have to provide external nutrients through fertilization, then you are misguided.

Fertilizers provide much-needed additional nutrients to your peace lilies that act as mandatory fuel for their body.

The role of fertilizers is underrated, they give the necessary vitamin and mineral supplements to peace lily plants that cannot be fulfilled by other sources.

Also Read: What Type of Potting Soil is ZZ Plant Needs?

Best Fertilizer for Peace Lily Plant

best fertilizer for peace lily plant

Depending on the nutrients and time taken to enrich the soil, fertilizers can be categorized into three types.

  • Liquid fertilizer: It will be readily available for plants to use. Easy to be used on growing soil and leaves. Need to apply more often due to its prone to run-off nature.
  •  Fertilizer granules: These are slow releases of fertilizers. It gets activated as you water and enrich the potting soil with the required nutrients over time.
  •  Fertilizer spikes: It is one of the best approaches that supply nutrients to your plant soil. Compared to liquid fertilizer, this type of fertilizer doesn’t need to be used often.

NPK ratio of peace lily plant fertilizer must be 20-20-20.

Nitrogen helps the plant to produce dark green foliage and contributes to the photosynthesis process.

Phosphorus element in fertilizer helps to produce blossoms, strengthen stalks and improve root system.

Potassium increases the root system, contribute to food formation, and keeps your peace lily plant well hydrated by maintaining water pressure in cells.

Based on these requirements, you can choose any organic fertilizer with a balanced NPK ratio.

You can add slow-release fertilizers in potting mixtures and free yourself from the hassle of fertilizing peace lily plants after every few months.

But, the problem with slow-releasing fertilizers is that sometimes they cannot be controlled, and can result in over-fertilization. This is equally (if not more) harmful than not fertilizing your plant ever.

Liquid fertilizers can be diluted in water and can be sprayed on plants occasionally. Though these are widely used, they present the drawback of not knowing when to spray.

You will have to look out for a schedule that suits the needs of your plant to fertilize them using liquid fertilizers.

Oftentimes, you would notice a three-number series displayed on the label of commercially available fertilizers. These numbers are known as the NPK ratio, and they are very significant to determine a good quality fertilizer.

When choosing a fertilizer for peace lilies, make sure that nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus are evenly balanced and form a balanced ratio.

You can also go with fertilizers that have more nitrogen in them.

Liquid fertilizers diluted in water with a brilliant NPK ratio (usually 20-20-20) should be preferred.

Also Read: Are Eggshells Good for Peace Lily?

Best Homemade Fertilizer for Peace Lily

An easy homemade fertilizer for peace lilies would be to take 1 tbsp of vinegar and dilute it into a gallon of water.

The essential minerals of the plant remain intact if this homemade fertilizer is sprayed once every three months.

The commercial sector is filled with fertilization products for plants. If you are wondering which one is the best for your peace lilies, and how you can make it at home?

1. Grass clippers – best liquid fertilizer for peace lily

The rich amount of nitrogen in grass clippers helps contribute to the healthy growth of the peace lily plant.

Soak grass clippers in an equal amount of water for 3 days. Strain the clippers and enrich the growing soil with this liquid fertilizer.

2. Homemade dry compost

Every gardener must have a compost bin, which is not only helpful to fertilize plants but reduce wastage.

Made from kitchen leftovers, dry leaves, grass clippings, newspapers, and yard cuttings, backyard compost has macro and micronutrients that are essential to fertilize peaceful lily plants.

For indoor plants, you must use dry compost to avoid bad odor in the room.

3. Cow Manure for Peace Lily Plant

Using fresh manure isn’t recommended. However, you can add composted cow manure around the root ball of the peace lily plant while planting.

If you want to fertilize your houseplant during the growing season, then choose liquid fertilizer from grass clippings.

Not just these three, you can use coffee grounds, bone meal, sea weed extract, wood ash, horse and poultry manure can be best homemade plant food for peace lily plants.

Also Read: Why is My Peace Lily Turning Yellow?

Why are Natural Fertilizers for Peace Lily better than chemical fertilizers?

Slow release of nutrients, sustainability and positive impact on soil health are main reasons why most gardeners prefer organic or natural fertilizer for peace lily.

Apart from adding nutrients to the soil, natural fertilizers add organic matter to it. Thus, improving soil texture and water retention ability of the growing medium.

Along with macro-nutrients, natural fertilizers has micro-nutrients that enrich the potting soil.

However, this doesn’t mean chemical fertilizer should be avoided completely. Synthetic fertilizers have their importance depending on the specific circumstances and goals.

When to Fertilize Peace Lilies?

The right time to fertilize peace lilies is when they are not at the dormant stage. That is when they are actively growing and are prepared to grow more.

Divide your schedule in a manner that the peace lilies get fertilized at least three to four times evenly throughout the growing season.

Does a peace lily plant need fertilizer?

Peace lily is drought resistant plant and it can thrive in low lighting conditions, supplying with some required amount of fertilizers will make your houseplant healthy.

How to fertilize peace lily plant at home?

Fluoride and chlorine content in tap water turn peace lily plant leaves brown. Use distilled water or keep tap water overnight before adding it to the fertilizer.

Follow the dosage directions listed by the fertilizer manufacturer.

How often to fertilize peace lily plant?

Fertilizing every week may result in fertilizer burn.

House plants like peace lily don’t need consistent fertilizer. Fertilizing once after 6-8 weeks will be enough to enrich the soil.

Also Read: How Long Does a Peace Lily Plant Live?

What are signs of peace lily fertilizer burn?

Excess use of fertilizer will leave salt deposits on the growing soil, which results in brown foliage.

Limit the use of fertilizer to moderate.

Peace Lily Care Tips

Peace lilies won’t just go well if you fertilize them nicely. There are certain general norms that peace lilies expect to grow and sustain well in their life.

Some of the many general care tips for growing a peace lily in your backyard are given here.

Remember that the tips are not limited to those mentioned and the routine can be modified under the guidance of a gardener or a botanist.

Also Read: How Often Should I Water My Prayer Plant?

Light

If you have been growing peace lilies in your backyard, you know that light is not a compulsory condition for peace lily plants to thrive.

  • They can survive (or at least live at the urge of surviving) even by residing in a shady or dark environment.
  •  That being said, staying in little light is a situation that only works when they live in their natural habitat.
  •  If you are to grow a peace lily plant indoors, or in your backyard, then your plant demands a sufficient amount of bright sunlight.
  •  The sunlight should be filtered or should be kept indirect as an important condition, since direct sunlight harms the plant, making it weak.

It is also important to remember that the requirement of water that peace lily needs depends on the variety of plants you grow. 

While some of them can withstand direct sunlight, others choose to refrain from it.

If you are thinking about a way to know that your plant has received plenty of sunlight, and does not need more, there is an easy way of doing that.

If any or all of the leaves of your peace lily plant have started taking unusual curls at the edges and turned yellow or brown, it indicates that there is more than enough direct and indirect sunlight available to your plant.

On the other end, scorched or burned leaves direct towards the fact that your plant requires filtered sunlight and not direct rays.

Also Read: Why Is My String of Pearls Plant Dying?

Water

Peace lilies are native to rainforests and environments that produce likewise surroundings.

As a result, these plants have a natural tendency to seek out water, humidity, and moisture. Conclusively, watering them regularly becomes a requirement for them to thrive.

Further, the watering requirements change according to different seasons and present varying demands.

On one hand, summers demand watering frequently, while on the other hand, winters want peace lilies to get a comparatively lesser amount of water, but they do not expect for the soil to dry out.

As a result, it is recommended to keep the soil moist throughout the entire winter season.

Overwatering often results in peace lily root rot.

Water Quality

Lastly, the quality of water is also a big issue when it comes to watering peace lilies.

Highly chlorinated water (that is usually available in swimming pools or the commercial marketplace) is not tolerated by the plants.

Chlorine tends to disturb the natural composition of plants, thus harming them in ways that we don’t understand. In this case, they demand an urgent replacement with either tap water or filtered water.

Also Read: Can You Put a Peace Lily Outside?

Soil

Potting mixture or soil required for peace lilies is one of the most important components of growing plants successfully.

They provide the essential nutrients to the plant and keep them healthy for long.

The health and growth of peace lily plants are enriched if they are dispensed with highly organic and nutrient-rich soil.

Additionally, one should also pay attention to the fact that the potting mixture is not arid or left dry for long periods. One should attempt to mimic the soil composition of their native place, the rainforests.

Fertilizer

There is a lot said about fertilizing peace lilies in the right way, but here is a quick recap.

There are no specific fertilizing conditions or materials to be referred to in the case of peace lilies, except for the fact that the NPK ratio should be balanced evenly.

Fertilizing peace lilies in the dormant season forces the growth of the plants, which is not recommended for a healthy plant yield. 

Conclusion

Peace lily is a hardy plant that survives drought conditions. It needs no specified fertilizer, anything with a balanced NPK ratio will be enough to fertilize the peace lily plant.

The use of fertilizers will improve foliage, root system and helps in the production of blossoms.

Fertilizing peace lilies is important, and if you have read the article with a little attention, you would know exactly why!

Follow the mentioned tips with consistency and pay attention to the cues your plant provides and make sure to respond to those cues to get the maximum out of your house garden.