Peace lily yellow leaves are annoying, depriving this gorgeous plant’s foliage of its beauty. This can be aging or happen because of pests, compromised water, lighting issues, or problems with your watering schedule.
Why are my peace lily leaves turning yellow, can be an issue to identify as it will help you fix it to restore your plant’s healthy and gorgeous look. Luckily, our gardening team will help you with this issue so your Spathiphyllum plant will always look its best.
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What Are The Reasons You Have Yellow Peace Lily Leaves?
The reasons that you have yellow peace lily leaves are due to its aging, and improperly placed water. In addition, it can be due to compromised water, lighting issues, and temperature changes. In addition, it can be due to nutritional issues, low humidity, pests, diseases, and transplanting shock.
The yellowing foliage can result from lighting or watering issues, including bad water quality. Changes in the temperature and moisture levels can also affect your plant’s look. Yet, in some cases, this can be a sign of aging or a lack of essential nutrients might cause it.
– Aging
Sometimes, seeing the foliage turning yellow on your Spathiphyllum plant isn’t a concerning sign. Instead, it could be a natural sign of aging as the old leaves become dry and yellow. After that, they fall off the plant, reserving its energy for new growth.
However, this doesn’t mean that it can survive with too much neglect, if you look at the plant ask yourself, why are my lily leaves turning yellow? You must also consider that this is part of its life and that it is growing out the old leaves, hence, the yellowing is a sign that they are growing out the old ones and will shoot new ones.
Peace lilies are unique plants that survive indoors and outdoors, characterized by their sweet yet mild fragrance and luscious leaves. This is why having yellow leaves can be an annoying problem, as they will ruin the look of your beautiful plant.
– Improper Watering
This is probably the main culprit when your Spathiphyllum leaves become yellow. These tropical plants appreciate the extra moisture and humidity, so some beginner gardeners can actually overwater them, thinking that they’re helping them.
Too much watering and growing the plant in poor-draining soil causes water to collect around the roots. This eventually leads to root rot, making roots mushy and unable to absorb nutrients. Moreover, this is also the case when the roots have developed fungi and they aren’t healthy in the growth, which is why the leaves aren’t producing proper amounts of chlorophyll anymore.
Having fewer nutrients available for the plant is a significant stressor. The leaves will turn yellow and wilt before they fall off, and the plant will experience stunted growth. Your Spathiphyllum might also lose its blossoms or won’t bloom in the first place.
On the other hand, your plant might have yellowing curled leaves. Then this problem is probably caused by the lack of watering that the plant is not receiving in the right amount that it should. Although the plant can survive drought for short periods, extended dry conditions will eventually kill your Spathiphyllum.
– Compromised Water
In addition to how frequently you water your Spathiphyllum, you must consider the water quality. Normal tap water is packed with fluoride, sodium, and chlorine, which can affect the plant’s life and cause yellowing leaves. Well water can also be bad for your plant if it’s dirty.
Some people think that using dirty laundry or cleaning water to water their plants is an excellent way to recycle this water, but it can contain harmful bacteria or too many fertilizers that eventually harm your plants.
Using a softener on hard water will also make the water too dangerous for your plant. This is because it would not be comfortable growing when this type of water is excessively filling the roots and hindering growth.
– Lighting Issues
Peace lily plants thrive in low and indirect light conditions, making them among the best indoor houseplants. However, depriving the plant of light is usually the culprit behind having yellow foliage. With too little light, the plant won’t be able to perform photosynthesis, so the leaves will turn yellow.
Yet, too much light can burn your plant’s leaves. The scorched leaves become too dry and yellow, giving your Spathiphyllum an unhealthy look. Lighting issues can also cause the formation of peace lily yellow flowers.
– Temperature Changes
Spathiphyllum thrives in warm conditions, growing best between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures during day time and about 10 degrees cooler at nighttime. These temperatures are attainable in indoor spaces, which makes Spathiphyllum an excellent indoor houseplant. However, the cold temperature can cause yellowing if you live in a cooler climate.
Hot temperatures can also harm your plant, so you should note that your plant becomes too dry as the temperature increases beyond 85 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, you will have yellow foliage unless you compensate for the increased temperature with more water, because they would be harming it.
– Nutrients Issues
Peace lilies appreciate frequent feeding as they thrive in organically rich soil. However, this plant isn’t a heavy feeder, so if you’re already growing it in fertile soil, its foliage will stay healthy.
However, in poor soil, you will see yellowing foliage and stunted growth at the same time. Unless you have replenished the depleted nutrients, the lack of nitrogen, iron, and magnesium can all turn the leaves yellow, which is why it wouldn’t produce chlorophyll and have the leaves look beautiful and green.
You can also have a yellowing foliage problem if your plant is root-bound and in such a case, it would also be because of the lack of nutrients that are not coming to the plant. This is because a root-bound plant doesn’t have access to enough nutrients so that the foliage color will become yellow.
However, too much fertilizer won’t help your plant, it may even cause it to burn instead. In most cases, overfeeding your plant will lead to the formation of dark tips on the leaves. It can also cause the formation of green flowers.
– Low Humidity
As a tropical plant, peace lily thrives in high humidity. It might be subject to low humidity levels as an indoor plant, especially in winter. Warm drafts will make your plant lose moisture faster, so you’ll see yellow and brown spots, yellow foliage, and browning tips.
– Pests and Diseases
One of the reasons why peace lily is a popular beginner-friendly plant is that it’s resistant to most pests and diseases. However, this healthy plant is prone to infestations by mealybugs, aphids, and spider mites that suck the juice of your plant. In such a case, aphids may start to suck the nutrients of the leaves and this way you will see it weakening and becoming yellow.
Fungal diseases can also be why the leaves on your plant are yellow. So, why is my peace lily leaves turning brown at tips? This can also be caused by these fungal diseases.
– Transplant Shock
Moving your Spathiphyllum plant to a new location can sometimes be why it has yellow foliage. Peace lilies are hardy plants, so shocks aren’t that common. However, they can happen.
In most cases, your plant will be able to recover quickly. Yet, if it doesn’t, you’ll see some yellowing followed by wilting. Moreover, you’ll see the flowers turning downward and drooping before falling off the plant.
How To Fix Yellow Leaves on Peace Lily?
To fix the yellow leaves on peace lily, you should let it naturally grow, or water it properly and use clean water. Additionally, adjust the lighting exposure, adjust the temperature, and feed it regularly. Moreover, try to fix the humidity, treat the pests, and diseases, and help the growth.
Seeing some yellowing foliage can be alarming, but it’s not something that can’t be fixed with some changes to the watering schedule and using high-quality water. You can also change light exposure, feed the plant regularly, or trim the old leaves.
– Let Nature Take Its Course
Your Spathiphyllum leaves become yellow as an ordinary sign of aging, and the best thing to do is to leave the damaged leaves the way they are. These old peace lily’s leaves will eventually wilt and fall off your plant, so you don’t have to remove them.
You can also prune the yellow foliage to preserve your plant’s fresh and alluring look. After pruning the leaves, remove the dead leaves to avoid attracting pests to your garden. This is a good sign, because the leaves lived properly and now after a while they will start to fade and grow new leaves,
Will yellow peace lily leaves turn green again? Should I remove yellow leaves from peace lily? This depends on the reason, significantly. If you have leaves that are getting older, then you must ensure that you prune them out because you are opening space for the new shoots.
– Water Properly
Spathiphyllum thrives in well-draining soil, so you shouldn’t grow it in a pot without enough draining holes. Although you should water your plant regularly, you don’t have to overwater it, as this is the main reason that leads to root rot. It’s best to wait until the first inch of the soil is dry.
If the soil feels too dry, the leaves become yellow. You should water your plant more often when you see peace lily leaves drooping or wilting. Peace lily can survive dehydration, but it won’t last long if you don’t water it for weeks.
Your watering schedule should also change according to the temperature and sun exposure. So if you’re unsure about how much water to give your plant, use a moisture meter. Hence, you can also try to water it in a bottom-watering kind of style and make sure the roots would receive the right amount.
– Use Clean Water
Although using municipal water to water your plants makes sense, this water is packed with chlorine and sodium, which might affect your plant’s health. These chemicals build up in the plant, turning the leaves yellow. Well water can also be packed with pathogens that harm your plant in the long run.
Before using municipal water, check if your city adds chlorine, fluoride, and sodium to municipal water. You can also let the water sit overnight to allow the toxins to evaporate.
You can use a water filter or use filtered water. If you use a water softener, reverse osmosis can remove salts from your water, or you can make sure that the tap water you have is also one that is clean and free from chemicals.
– Adjust Light Exposure
Spathiphyllum is an understory plant in tropical regions, so yellowing leaf tips and foliage are common peace lily problems because people expose the plant to too much light. This usually leads to the formation of brown tips and the overall yellowing of the leaves with green veins.
Some people mistakenly leave their peace lily in the dark because these plants can tolerate low light conditions. However, when they’re deprived of light, the foliage will turn pale yellow. You should not place it where the light is heavily and directly targeting the plant because it would burn the leaves.
In short, to solve light exposure issues, you should ensure that your plant receives six to almost eight hours of filtered or indirect sunlight. If you’re keeping it in the garden, you should make sure that taller plants or objects do not totally shade it. You should ensure your plant pot is placed near a south or west-facing window in your home.
– Adjust Temperature
Normal house temperatures, including peace lilies, are generally suitable for most indoor plants. However, you should place your plant from cool drafts and heat vents to avoid damaging the foliage.
Keeping the plants in a cold area where the temperature drops significantly is a significant stressor and can cause the yellowing of the foliage. The plant will also have yellow and brown leaves in hot climates; you need to water it more often.
At the same time, if you live in USDA zone 9 or colder zones, keep your Spathiphyllum plants inside. You can also use a thermometer for checking temperatures regularly.
– Feed Regularly
Most people check their outdoor soil for nutrients but don’t check potting soil because it’s already enriched. So, if you’ve been growing peace lilies in soil that other heavy-feeding plants have already depleted, you need to feed your peace lilies regularly.
Using a slow-release fertilizer at the season’s beginning or a balanced liquid fertilizer once a week will help the plant stay healthy. You should avoid overfertilizing your Spathiphyllum as this can damage your plants as the minerals build up in the soil, which is why you can begin by testing the soil and seeing if any important nutrients are missing.
If you’ve been growing peace lilies in pots, you want to replace the potting soil every few years. Fresh potting soil will keep your plants healthy so that you will not place it at risk of developing in a mushy ground where it once faced root rot.
– Increase Humidity
Keep your peace lily healthy by mimicking the conditions in which it grows in its tropical natural habitat. In your garden or home, your plant might be too dry or not as humid as it prefers.
Place plants close to each other, increasing the humidity from transpiration. Add pebbles to the saucer under your pot to increase humidity. Using a humidifier and misting your plant can also work, and you will see it growing in a healthy way again.
– Treat Pests and Diseases
Sap-sucking pests make the plant unhealthy, causing the yellowing of the foliage. You can use horticultural oil as a spot treatment to eliminate these pests, and this will tackle them away, just as well as you would use neem oil, dilute it, and spray on the plant.
Various bacterial and fungal diseases can lead to the same problem. Root rot usually leads to drooping flowers and yellow foliage on the bottom of the plant. Adjusting the watering schedule, flushing the roots, and using fresh and clean soil will fix this problem. Dasheen mosaic virus causes yellow spots on the plant, but unfortunately, it’s not curable.
Conclusion
The yellowing of the Spathiphyllum leaves can result from various reasons. However, this issue can be easily fixed.
- Aging is a common cause of yellowing foliage, and there’s nothing serious about seeing a yellow or brown leaf.
- Adjusting the watering schedule, using the right water, and adjusting humidity levels will help your plant recover.
- Lighting issues can cause the leaves to become yellow.
- Feeding your plant and treating pests and diseases can help restore the green color to your peace lily.
In most cases, your peace lily is resilient enough to recover, keep your plant somewhere where it gets enough light, provide it with enough water, avoid fertilizing it, and trim off the dying leaves.
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