I am trying to revive my sad peace lily. I’ve had it for about ten months, and it survived not being looked after for almost five weeks when we were in Greece, and it recently flowered with up to ten flowers. The catastrophe started when I realised my pot was leaking and the wooden legs on my pot were splitting from dampness, and dirty water was slowly seeping from the pot.

I think this has been mostly my fault. It is my duty to care for the plant and if I do something wrong, the plant will react in an unsavoury way. I’m notorious for having killed succulents in the past, and I think you have not truly lived as an adult until you have killed a succulent. Or maybe even a plant. If I kill this plant, it will be the first non-succulent I will have killed. 😢

My first mistake was getting a pot that didn’t have good drainage. There is a cutout to encourage drilling a hole in this pot, but because I wanted to keep this plant indoors and not stand it on a plant saucer or surface, I ignored that. Not the best move for my first plant, especially when good drainage is highly encouraged, and especially when you are a beginner plant parent.

I refuse to accept that I’m a bad plant parent because my monstera El Salvador is looking incredibly beautiful right now, and I managed to propagate my snake plant that I salvaged from IKEA, and it’s already growing another bud. This peace lily truly lived and it was able to bloom, so I must have been doing something right. It experienced a few unusual black streaks on unopened leaves and I couldn’t figure out the cause. I began to leave tap water out overnight to reduce chlorine and fluoride, and I made sure to check the soil was dry before watering.

My other mistake would be that I planted the peace lily in too large a pot. It was huge, honestly. It was way too big for the plant, and it became even more apparent when I decided to take it out of the leaking pot and do something about it. I also didn’t want to accept that root rot was the cause, but looking at the roots, they looked nasty. Brown, some dry and some mushy, and they had a semi rank smell to them. I ordered a new pot, and I trimmed some of the roots off before putting the peace lily in water.

Maybe not the best idea. I know they can grow in water, but I think the plant was shocked from myriad factors that the leaves started to yellow before I was able to put it into a new pot with fresh new soil. I am hoping it will bounce back. I laugh at this plant sometimes because it’s so temperamental and even though peace lilies are easy to care for, it bothers me immensely that the symptoms for over-watering and under-watering are similar. I’ve read up and searched meticulously for solutions to the problems, but nothing is clear.

The plant being cranky reminds me of when I’m in a fucking mood. Anyway, it’s in its new pot, saddest it’s ever looked, and I can only hope it is getting more nutrients from the soil now. I am letting it accustom to this “right” environment overnight before I give it more water. I know these plants thrive on being neglected some, but this isn’t neglected, it’s just shocked as fuck, and has probably had more water than it needs.

Alright buddy, hang in there.

I’m blogging every day in January 2023. Let me know if you’ll be joining in and trying to blog every day. 😊 The hashtag you can use on social media is #blogeverydamnday.