Best Potting Soil for Peace Lily

A type of lily, Peace lilies are one of their kinds. Scientifically known as Spathiphyllum, they are a 47 genus species that are also famous by the name of spath. 

It is good to get lilies from the markets and professionals, but imagine growing them in your own backyard, without any support and as you wish them to be.

Interesting, right?

While these plants are easy to grow in a household, some people might be confused where to get the best potting soil for peace lilies. But don’t worry; we will assist you at every step of your planting and growing peace lilies with utmost clarification and precision.

Before we begin, let us have a quick look at what peace lilies are. As we gain more knowledge about our favorite plants, we will know more about how to take care of them.

• Peace lilies are evergreen plants that stay green in every season. Their leaves are 12–65 cm long and 3–25 cm broad. These large leaves are corresponded with beautiful white flowers. 
• The plant is easy to take care of in the sense that it does not demand much water or sunlight from the environment.
• Cats and dogs are highly sensitive to the absorption of lilies and it can even lead to their immediate death after consumption. Humans on the other hand experience mild disability symptoms and the plants are not toxic to them.

Some of the most popular varieties of peace lily include Spathiphyllum ’Power Petite’, S. ‘Mauna Loa Supreme’, S. ‘Sensation’, S. ‘Mojo’, S. ‘Golden Delicious’, and S. ‘Starlight’. 

Now that we have an idea about peace lilies, let us look forward to exploring the best potting mix. 

Also Read: Why Are My Calla Lily Leaves Turning Yellow?

Best Potting Soil for Peace Lily: Potting Mix

The peace lilies come from tropical canopy conditions, and they thrive best in tropical conditions. Therefore, if one is to make a peace lily potting mix, then it is required for you to mimic the same tropical composition. 

With careful research and observation, it is not that big a task. In the following section, you would get to know about the ideal and best potting soil for peace lily, with drainage, composition, fertilizer, and new soil as being some of the main considerations. Without further ado, let us begin. 

Drainage

A well drained soil with the ability to stay moist for long hours is exactly the kind of soil demanded by peace lily. There are specific reasons as to why peace lilies love this dual natured soil. 

In order for the plant to remain upright, tall, blooming, sturdy, and green, it is required for the soil to be damp that ensures that roots have an ample amount of water delivered to them at regular intervals. 

A dampened and moist soil should not be confused with soggy soil, since peace lilies do not like living in soggy soil and can even die if kept in there for long periods of time. It turns the leaves witty and discolors them, turning them yellow, brown or even pale. 

The moderate amount of water present in the soil fills the air containing gaps in the soil and gives a chance to roots for breathing. For this reason, it is advised to wait for visible dryness on the top layer of the soil, before watering.

• It is not important for the soil to look moist, but it is important for the lower soil layers to remain humid for long time periods. That being said, remember that every time you decide to water the plants, water it thoroughly, but not overly. Once water starts coming out of drainage holes, take it as a sign to stop.
• If you keep your plants in a pot, then do not place it inside a drainage container. Sometimes, the porous material of the plant soaks water back in, causing overwatering inside the plant. It can lead to root rot, by making the soil soggy. 
• Conclusively, it is important for you to select a potting mixture that is able to drain out excess water well. You can either commercially purchase one such mix, or make it yourself. 

Also Read: Why Pothos Leaves Turning Yellow?

Composition

Composition, as big as this name sounds, the little meaning it holds. Simply put, composition of a soil is the water holding capacity of the soil. When it comes to peace lily, a soil should be used that is light in weight, let’s water drain out easily, and retains enough moisture to support the plant. 

There are no special soil composition considerations that need to be checked out, instead one can use any typical potting soil, as long as it guarantees a good drainage system. 

If you are growing peace lilies as your houseplants, and are not sure about the appropriate type of soil composition, then you can make one yourself too. All you have to do is, take loam, peat moss, and sand, in equal quantities and combine them nicely.  The method is simple and is recommended by University of North Dakota Extension Service. 

Another soil making recipe is provided by the Horticulture magazine, wherein they suggest mixing peat potting soil with bark chips and perlite according to the quantity required by you. You can adjust the ingredients and their composition as and when you desire. 

Also Read: Why My Snake Plant is Dying?

Fertilizer

Belonging to the tropical side of the world, one can expect peace lilies to derive all the essential nutrients from the soil itself. Nevertheless, not fertilizing is not an option. Excess water might be harmful, but excess nutrients always count.

Fertilizing plants is very important, and one can practice it either daily, or weekly, or even monthly, according to the food the plants retain from decaying matter and the soil. It is important to keep your lilies well fed all the time. But, what should we feed them?

We have discussed the quantity of fertilizers to be used in plants, and now let’s jump to the ingredients of those fertilisers. What should an ideal peace lily fertilizer be made of? The main purpose of a fertilizer is to properly soak into the soil and deliver nutrition to every nook and corner of the plant. 

In order to achieve this aim, the fertilizer must be water soluble and should not be highly concentrated. One good example is a 20 20 20 fertilizer. 

While a strong acid can burn the plant, diluting it with water can be a good choice. If you are using synthetic commercial fertilizers, then spray them once in 4 to 6 weeks. However, if you are making one at your home, then it is recommended to spray them once every 4 to 6 weeks. 

Also Read: Why Is My Orchid Stem Turning Yellow?

New Soil 

You cannot always use the same old soil time and again, and expect it to deliver fineness to your plants. That is not a choice.

You can definitely try and keep your soil fresh and nutritive by spraying fertilizers or watering timely, but at some point the old soil demands to be changed.

If you keep adding fertilizers to the same soil for longer time periods, then it can actually lead to an unwanted salt build up that can cause damage to your peace lily plants. 

This is where repotting comes into use. Repotting your peace lily plants after each year, helps it adapt to a fresh potting mixture, and gives maximum benefit to it. Once you repot your peace lily into a new soil mixture, wait for some weeks for the plant to show signs of root bound. Since you have freshly potted your plant, you have the power to easily change the position of the plant from one place to another. 

Change your potting mixture to provide multiple benefits to your peace lily plant. 

Importance of potting mix for houseplants

There are many reasons for adding potting mix in houseplants. It is of immense importance to the growth and nutritive value of houseplants.

Some of these important reasons are: 

• Since the root growth and function are destroyed and limited by the presence of a pot, adding a healthy potting mixture enhances the progress of the root, giving it back most of its major functions.
• A fine potting mixture provides proper aeration and drainage to the plant. If we use a well drained soil that retains moisture and nutrients, then half of the food is made available to the plant 
• If the soil is made of organic matter, and serves adequate nutrients to the plant, then there is no need of spraying fertilizers frequently. It saves you from an immense amount of time, energy, and money.

Taking care of peace lilies

There are also other preliminaries besides a good potting mixture, that are required to take good care of your peace lily plants. Some of them are: 

Water

Since peace lilies are a native of rainforests, they seek out for water, humidity, and moisture. Therefore, it is important to water them continuously on a regular basis. While summers demand watering frequently, winters have other expectations. 

In winters, peace lilies want less water, but they do not expect for the soil to dry out. Therefore, it is important to keep the soil moist in winters throughout. 

Further, highly chlorinated water is not tolerated by the plants and they demand an urgent replacement with either tap water, or filtered water. 

Light

Light is not a necessary condition for lily plants to thrive. They can make their living by residing in a shady environment too. That said, this is a condition that works when they live in their natural habitat.

If you are to grow a peace lily plant at your home, or perhaps indoors, then your plant demands an ample amount of filtered sunlight. The sunlight should be filtered is a necessary condition, since direct sunlight harms the plant and makes it weak. 

It is important to inquire about the variety of peace lily you grow. Some of them can withstand direct sunlight, while others choose not to.  That said, how would you know that your plant has received plenty of sunlight, and does not need more? There is a way for that.

If the leaves of your plant have started curling at the edges and turned yellow that means that there is more than enough sunlight available to your plant. On the other hand, scorched leaves indicate that they require filtered sunlight and not the direct rays. 

Soil

We have been discussing the ideal soil type for peace lilies so far, so we would summarize everything here. The growth of lily plants is highly escalated if they are provided with highly organic and nutrient rich soil.

The soil should not be left dry and should be watered daily. One should try and mimic the soil composition of their native place, the rainforests. 

Temperature and Humidity

Coolness is not the best friend of peace lilies. They have always been lovers of the warm and humid environment. If you decide to grow plant lilies on your own, then maintaining similar temperature and humid conditions is needed. 

While it likes sitting in the ideal temperature range of 65 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, any temperature that goes below 55 degrees Fahrenheit is likely to kill the plant immediately. 

When it is the onset of summer, one requires to spritz the plants every week. 

Fertilizer

There are no specific fertilizing conditions or materials to be referred to in case of peace lilies. Any fertilizer would go until and unless it is not the winter season. In summers, fertilizing plants weekly is required, but one should keep fertilisers away from plants during winters.

It is not the fertilizing material that matters, it is the season that influences. 

Conclusion

It is not a difficult job to create the perfect potting mix or potting soil for peace lilies. However, it is important to fill them with all the required ingredients to get the best results. 

The aforementioned information would help you in framing the right planting plan for your house peace lily plant. With the right apparatus, you would no doubt be able to garden magic in your backyard.