How to Root a Peace Lily in Water: Your Ultimate Guide

The Peace Lily, also known as the Spathe or Spathiphyllum plant, is one of the easiest plants to grow. It can survive in the harshest conditions and usually bounces back in no time. Surprisingly, Spathe can also grow in water, but how to root a Peace Lily in water?

You’ll need to divide the plant by its crown to propagate your Spathe flower. Then, you can add each new section to a container filled with distilled or unchlorinated water. The tricky part is keeping the roots and the bottom of the plant submerged in water.

Do you want to find out more? In today’s article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about rooting your Peace Lily in water. So let’s get right into it!

How to Root a Peace Lily in Water

Peace Lilies can thrive in a water container. In fact, there are many pros to rooting your Peace Lily in water, which we’ll talk about later in the article, but first, let’s check out how to root the Spathiphyllum plant:

The Materials You’ll Need

Here’s a list of the materials you’ll need to root your Peace Lily in water:

A Suitable Glass Container

You can use any container as long as it’s large enough to contain your Peace Lily. However, glass containers are overall a better option.

Glass is transparent, which means you’ll be able to observe the condition of the water and the roots at any given time.

Distilled or Unchlorinated Water

While spathiphyllum plants are tough and resilient, they are a little sensitive to chemicals like chlorine and fluoride, which are present in tap water.

In most cases, your Peace Lily will be fine with tap water. However, if you live in an area where tap water contains high levels of chlorine, it’s best if you use distilled or unchlorinated water.

If you’re unsure about the levels of chlorine in your tap water, you can simply test the levels of chlorine using a water testing kit, or you can use distilled water to be on the safe side.

Sharp Knife or Scissors

You’ll need a knife or scissors to propagate your Peace Lily.

Sometimes, the roots get stuck, and you’ll need a sharp object to cut the plant into sections. This is more common in larger plants than in smaller ones.

Plastic Stopper

If you place a Peace Lily in a jar of water, it’ll get completely submerged in water, and we only need the bottom part of the plant to be submerged.

That’s where the plastic stopper comes in handy. Additionally, it can help the Peace Lily stay in place.

You can make a plastic stopper by cutting a hole in any piece of plastic that’s larger than the opening of your container. You can also use a rubber band to hold the Peace Lily in place and insert a pencil or a glass rod underneath it.

Furthermore, you can ditch the plastic stopper and get a glass container with a tight opening, or add some rocks and pebbles at the bottom of the jar to raise the Peace Lily higher and tuck it in place.

Rooting the Peace Lilly

After gathering all the materials, you can grab your Peace Lily and proceed with the following steps:

Carefully remove your mature, healthy Spathiphyllum plant from its pot by grabbing it at the base and yanking it with gentle pressure.
Clean your plant from the excess soil.
Examine your Peace Lily and remove any damaged or diseased parts.
Identify the crowns, which are little clumps we’ll use to grow new Peace Lilies.
Divide the plant by the crown, and make sure each part has its roots and leaves.
Rinse the new sections with water gently to remove any soil remains.
Grab your glass jar and fill it halfway with room-temperature water.
Place your Peace Lily in the jar and adjust its placement with the stopper. We want the roots to be fully submerged in water while the base of the plant barely touches the water.
You can also use anchoring rocks or pebbles around the root to secure it in place.

Post-rooting Care for Peace Lilies

The rooting process can be very stressful for your plant. Therefore, it’s normal if you see some leaves turning yellow in the following days, your Spathiphyllum should bounce back in no time.

You can help your Peace Lily bounce back faster and healthier by providing it with its needs. Let’s check out how you can care for your Spathiphyllum plant after rooting:

Fertilizer

The best way to help your plant bounce back faster is by giving it some supplements. Liquid fertilizer is the best option in this case. You can give your new Spathiphyllum plant a few drops of organic liquid fertilizer once a week.

Don’t add the fertilizer right after the rooting process. It can be stressful for your Peace Lily to adjust to all these changes. Instead, you should wait two days before adding the liquid fertilizer to the water.

Water Changes

After a couple of days, the water might start to look a little off, as it’ll become stagnant. It’s crucial that you change the water at least twice a week.

This is mainly because the water runs out of oxygen, which your plant constantly needs. Additionally, a lot of airborne bacteria and dust can end up in the potting water.

You also need to keep your water level constant. So, whenever you see the water levels dropping, just add some fresh water.

Sunlight

The Spathe plants thrive best in indirect sunlight.

More importantly, you need to keep your plants away from direct sunlight, as it can be harmful to them.

Humidity

Peace Lilies are tropical plants. So they enjoy high humidity levels. You need to keep the humidity levels at 50% to 60% for the best results.

On dry days, you can mist your Spathe plants with some water to compensate for the low humidity. Additionally, a humidifier can come in handy, especially if you’re growing many plants that love high humidity.

Temperature

Your Spathe plant is a heat lover. Ideally, Peace Lily thrives in a temperature between 65 and 85 °F.

It’s essential to keep the temperature at this range, especially after the propagation, as your plant is already stressed out.

Should I Root My Peace Lily in Water?

Rooting your Peace Lily in water comes with both advantages and disadvantages. If you’re okay with the risks and disadvantages, you can root your Spathiphyllum plant in water.

Advantages

There are many advantages to rooting your Peace Lily in water. Here are some of them:

You can easily check the condition of the roots.
Repotting the plant can be done in a couple of minutes.
You don’t need to worry about how often you water your Peace Lily. It has all the water it needs, and it’ll only absorb the right amount.
You can forget about overwatering and underwatering.

Disadvantages

Unfortunately, there are some cons to water propagation you need to look out for. Here’s a list of these cons:

The Spathe plant will need frequent water changes.
You’ll need to get distilled or unchlorinated water if your tap water has high levels of chlorine.
Your Peace Lily might suffer from limited growth when rooted in water.

Conclusion

So, how to root a Peace Lily in water?

The process is simple, and you don’t need much experience to do it. You’ll need to remove the Peace Lily from its pot and eliminate the excess soil.

Then, you’ll need to rinse the plant and remove the dead roots. Finally, you can transfer the plant to its new home. Good luck rooting your Peace Lily in the water!

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