You might have a beautiful peace lily blooming in your home, and if so, you may be looking at it and wondering how soon it needs a new container. When does a peace lily need to go into a new pot, and how do you tell if your peace lily is outgrowing its space?
Your peace lily will benefit from being repotted about once a year, so if you are organized, you can do an annual repot, which keeps things nice and straightforward. However, if you have forgotten or your peace lily has outgrown its pot, you can tell it needs repotting by its root ball and water retention ability.
How Often Should I Repot My Peace Lily?
Peace lilies like to be repotted once a year, ideally in spring, before hitting their primary growing season. If you are organized, you can try to repot your plant around January, February, or March (if you live in the northern hemisphere, otherwise reverse it!) to get it into its new pot before it begins to grow.
However, peace lilies do like to be a bit crowded and don’t like the pot to be massively bigger than they require, so you may find that you are simply potting again into the same container. That’s not a problem, because your plant will still benefit from being repotted.
The move will aerate the soil, break up any compaction, and give your plant fresh nutrients around its roots to help it grow. If possible, repot your peace lily annually to keep its soil fresh and the plant fed and happy.
How Can I Tell If My Peace Lily Needs Repotting?
What about in between the repotting, or if you have forgotten to repot your plant? If your peace lily is looking a bit cramped in its pot, how do you know if it needs repotting?
The first way to tell is to pick up your peace lily and look at the underside of the pot. If you can see roots coming out of the holes in the bottom, your peace lily is probably too crowded and would benefit from being put into a new container.
In the same vein, if roots are coming out of the top of your plant’s pot, it needs a larger container.
Another way to tell is to pick your plant up and feel how heavy it is shortly after watering it. If it is very light, the water is running straight through the pot and not being absorbed because the roots are so tightly packed.
When the roots are very crowded, they don’t have much contact with soil, which is what holds the water for them, and if this happens, your plant will get dried out fast and may wilt even if you are watering it frequently.
You might also notice the water running straight through the pot and into the saucer beneath if your plant’s roots are overcrowded. This is another sure sign that it is time for a new pot!
How Do I Repot My Peace Lily?
The first thing to do is decide whether you will increase the size of your peace lily’s pot or split it up into several smaller pots. If you split it up, you can gift plants to friends and family or keep more plants yourself.
So, if you are going to split it up, find several containers around the same size as the plant’s current one. If you are going for a bigger pot, find a container a few inches bigger than the current one.
Don’t go huge; peace lilies are at risk of root rot if surrounded by too much soil, as they will stay wet for too long.
Water your peace lily about an hour or two hours before you plan to repot it; you will get a better result and find it easier to move.
When you have your container(s), fill it with soil to about a third or half full. Next, gently loosen the soil around your peace lily. If it is in a plastic container, you can gently flex the container. If it isn’t, use a knife or spatula and run it around the edges of the pot, breaking the soil away.
When your peace lily is free, gently tease out its roots and disentangle them. It is essential to do this so that the peace lily spreads into the new container.
Fill the rest of the pot with soil and pat it down, and then water lightly and put your plant in a shady place to recover.
Final Words
It is a good idea to repot your peace lily once a year. As the plant grows, it will keep spreading, and you can either put it into many small containers or move it into a larger one. The fresh soil will help to feed the plant and encourage it to keep growing.