A popular house plant due to its air purifying qualities, peace lilies reward you with impressive white floral displays in the right conditions. There are over 50 variations of these low-maintenance houseplants, but they all thrive in the same environment, warmth, humidity and indirect light.
Peace lilies are tropical plants and with the correct fertiliser they’ll flourish, but one tip could leave them even healthier. These plants need vital nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, but one tip from a plant expert reveals a great ‘free’ source of all of these for your peace lily. The expert has shared the household waste will make great feed for peace lilies – and will help them to produce bigger blooms.
Chontelle Fossey is plant expert at The Lily Pot and she’s described the essential nutrients needed by peace lilies to ensure they last and thrive. She said she is ‘always on the lookout’ for ways to keep houseplants happy – and detailed one unexpected ‘natural’ fertiliser.
Chontelle said: “I wanted to share some plant care hacks that shouldn’t cost you much, if anything, as you likely have these products in your home already.”
The nutrient-rich boost and top tip from the expert is watering the lily plant with fish tank water – and she explained that “fish tank water is rich in nitrogen and other nutrients that plants need to grow”.
Chontelle added that you simply water your plants with the fish tank water once a month to give them a nutrient boost.
However, she added that the fish tank water must be clean, low in salt, and free from harsh chemicals or medications so that no harm to the plant occurs.
Provided the water is suitable, clean and low in salt, you can even grow a peace lily plant in your aquarium, some say.
This would be done by popping the roots in the water, however, you must not submerge the whole plant.
This topic has been discussed on Reddit with one poster saying “they grow fine with their roots in the water, I have one in my aquarium.”
Another wrote (on Reddit): “I have one and it’s growing great, the only problem is that it’s gonna get way too huge.”
To this another replied suggesting dwarf varieties of peace lilies in an aquarium setting, while other posters said the lilies “really help with filtering waste’”
However, another person in the reddit conversation said to “make sure your peace lily leaves are above the water”.
They wrote: “I added this plant to my aquarium six months ago and noticed my fish progressively dying.
“I think the leaves were rotting or dying for whatever reason and it was causing a long chain of fish deaths.
“Ever since I took the plant out, I haven’t had any sick fish issues and I wish I would’ve known sooner.
“It’s either that or the plant itself introduced a bacteria to the water that my the inhabitants aren’t used to.”