Overwatered Peace Lily Plant: Signs, Saving + Revival Steps

Overwatering is the most common problem indoor peace lilies face. If this problem is not identified and corrective measures are applied on time, definitely peace lilies will die. Observing or just sticking to a strict watering routine can be misleading.

If you overwater them, peace lilies may respond as though you put them through heat. Surprisingly sometimes you’ll see yellow or brown sections of leaves.

Peace Lily Growth Facts

Peace lilies can thrive in low to bright but indirect sunlight. Prolonged exposure to bright direct sunlight could easily burn their leaves and dry out the whole plant over time.

These houseplants seem to enjoy week after week watering. However, during the winter they lose water at a slower rate since there is moderately low transpiration.

During the normal growing season, peace lilies can survive at room temperature. However, they refuse to grow if subject to extreme (lower or higher) temperatures.

Are You Overwatering Your Peace Lily?

Peace lilies need enough water only for them to keep growing and performing at their best. Like many indoor plants, they will also respond to being overfed with water.

What does an overwatered peace lily look like? Here are signs that you are overwatering these houseplants and why:

Sign 1: Peace Lily Plant Wilting

Surprisingly, flooding peace lilies may result in wilting. It is obvious to think that only heat or dry soil conditions cause wilting in plants. While that is true, soaking reduces oxygen levels in the root region. As a result, root cells just can’t take up water.

The wilting is persistent more often than not.

Sign 2: Discolored & Mushy Roots

Peace lilies and many houseplants can signal this symptom through part of or whole plant suddenly dying back. As mentioned, excess soil moisture means there is limited oxygen for root cells to work properly. Ultimately, the water-soaked roots will rot (become mushy) and can discolor.

Sign 3: Peace Lilies Yellowing Leaves

Yellowing in leaves can be a sign that you are either under watering or flooding your peace lily. This sign indicates your peace lily is ‘suffocating’ as a result of poor nutrition.

Sometimes, these yellow leaves may turn brown starting from the tips or edges. Older lower leaves may drop off first causing stunted growth.

Sign 4: Droopy Peace Lily Leaves

Droopy peace lily leaves are almost the first sign to tell you water is accumulating in the root zone. You would realize the leaves turn pale green with time before they start turning yellow.

How to Figure Out if you Overwatered

Houseplants may respond similarly when underwatered or overwatered. How do you go about diagnosing an overwatered peace lily?

Carry out routine care with an aim of using each of them as a symptom checker. Doing so should aid in ruling out either or all of other the possibilities.

Firstly, identify a safe place in your house or living room. Then, let your stressed peace lily go for at least a week or two without water. Ensure it is not over-touched or disturbed more often than not.

Scout Room Temperature

Secondly, strive to keep a more constant temperature range in the room with your peace lily. Try keeping it from 20 °C (71.2°F) to 23 °C (73.8°F). The control temperature range should keep your houseplant comfortable.

Keep Up Light Intensity

Identify a more North or South facing side of the living room or house room. Only ensure they receive bright indirect natural (sun) light. Doing so should help you possibly figure out what triggers dry leaf tips or edges.

Keep Water at 23 °C – 25 °C

Serve your houseplant with water at room temperature on the 3rd and 4th weeks, once each. I insist on distilled or cool boiled water from 23 °C – 25 °C (about 73.5 °F to 77.0 °F). Just keep the soil moist but not too wet or soggy.

If your peace lily doesn’t respond positively, you need to save it before it can wither.

Steps To Save an Overwatered Peace Lily

Before you embark on the revival task, assess how badly the potted plant has been affected. Well, the worst revival state could be yellowing leaves and withering of the whole plant. Otherwise to give your water-flooded and stressed peace lily a second chance, follow the remedial steps below.

i) Rinse-clean your hands, turn the pot on its side then see if you can slide the plant out. (But don’t hold stems or pull out)

ii) Check whether or not the roots are loose and soft. And try smelling them too.

iii) If they are loose, cut to remove the smelly, dark and soft-dead (mushy) root sections together with the shoots.

iv) In case the whole roots smelling, you need to treat them separately (step [vii] seven). If the smell comes from some parts only, then remove those parts and keep them far away.

v) Cut off all the yellowing and browning leaves and spare healthy ones even if they look withered.

vi) Then gently rinse the remaining firm roots under running water and transplant the peace lily into a new pot with pure fresh soil mix. You can reuse the old container after disinfecting it with hot water and detergent.

vii) Wash the roots with distilled or cool boiled water. Then dip the roots in a weak solution of fungicide or dilute 3% percent hydrogen peroxide or potassium permanganate. 

You may find applying activated charcoal to the wound cuts is necessary to enhance the absorption of the fungicide.

viii) Place the lily plant on a cool surface to rid of excess fungicide

ix) Finally, dip your piece lily in a clear container with a rooting hormone such as natural honey or Bacillus subtilis.

NOTE: These steps are valid only as long as your peace lily plant is revivable, saveable, or hasn’t died.

Below is what you need for the above steps:

• A disinfected/sterilized clean cutting knife
• 3% percent hydrogen peroxide
• Cool boiled/distilled water
• Sterilized pair of scissors
• Natural honey/Mycorrhizae, Trichoderma harzianum or Bacillus subtilis solutions

Reviving Overwatered Peace Lily

After having followed the above steps, here are revival care practices. These enhance the restoration of your peace lily plants.

Re-pot Your Peace Lily

Having successfully saved it with the above procedure, then immediately begin to repot it. First, though, you ought to have had fresh, well-drained soil mix ready with you.

Here are great points to note as part of practices to help revive your peace lily

• I recommend you get new pots of the right size
• Avoid watering it immediately after repotting since the new pot mix is still super moist
• Strive to acquire a pot with porous quality such as terracotta pots
• If you have to reuse the parent pot again ensure you sterilize it thoroughly
• Re-pot again in the first (year) 12 or so months after your peace lily has regained vigor

To help you get right the size of pot for your houseplant, carry out a risk-free evaluation using scientific principles. Consider a small peace lily for a larger pot: What is the likely outcome?

The smaller the plant the lesser the amout water it is likely to absorb. So if you are going for a small plant and large pot, it will likely flood. And vise versa.

However, the pot you choose shouldn't be too small. The root tips and hairs can get blocked from growing freely. This will likely affect water absorption too.

When and How to Water

The key to maintaining the correct watering routine is frequency and amount. You may not adapt to a single frequency as growing seasons come with changes. For example, the level of relative humidity will not be the same in winter and summer.

Reduce watering frequency in winter. Most gardeners consider this a thumb rule but water while consulting humidity levels. Thus, water very lightly after at least 2 weeks but again check first how dry the soil is. Increase the watering frequency in summer. We recommend watering lightly once a week.

Check Rooting Medium Temperature (Warmth)

Houseplants (peace lilies in particular) are tropical plants – very sensitive to chilling temperatures. Peace lilies can’t do with potting temperature below 4 °C.

Healthy peace lilies are comfortable with root temperature to be at 64 °F or 18 °C. Prevent pot soil temperatures from going below 60 °F for quick revival. Since peace lily is a tropical plant you need to ensure humidity, temperature, and transpiration strike a balance.

Fix the Post-repotting Issues

Signs of withering may be experienced, even after repotting, don’t give up. Some leaves may droop which is expected. Observe your transplants closely and then apply these measures.

• Remove the yellowed leaves only
• Don’t water your repotted peace lily immediately but give it some time to rejuvenate

Your peace lily will likely pick up with time.

Avoid Fertilising Normally

For the first three months of remedying and reviving your houseplants, avoid feeding them with any fertilizers. Give your plants adequate time to recover from stress and heal wounds.

With good and up-to-date care performance, you expect your peace lilies to revive, find a new rhythm and go again at most after week one.

Helpful Tips When Reviving Your Plant

• Never allow or place porous pots to sit in water in case you want to travel or go for a vocation
• Don’t reuse potting mix or soil from the same location for purposes of repotting
• Treat your new potting mix then topdress with a commercial compost manure or add organic material such as peat moss
• Add light potting mixes to increase drainage
• In case of a dip in humidity, consider misting houseplants lightly with distilled water at room temperature
• Keep tracking the pot soil temperature for any change and anomalies in measurement

Risks for Overwatering Peace Lily

Failure to act early and save your plant could mean you put it at stake. Here are the risks with overflooding them:

1. Abiotic injury. It simply refers to injury caused by non-living organism targets. Soil structure and pH, nutrient deficiency or toxicity, extreme temperature, and water stress contribute to abiotic injury to plants. Thus, overwatered houseplants will begin showing symptoms of pest attack or diseases.
2. Recurring root rot. With contamination still possible, you might experience recurring cases of root rot even after repotting.
3. Invasion of plant diseases. Poor nutritional health not only will cause death to your houseplants but paves way for secondary plant diseases such as Cylindrocladium spathiphylli and Phytophthora.
4. Death. Frequently flooding a potted plant means you risk it dying. After withering, its roots will rot. Then it will collapse and eventually die.

Without diligent act to revive them, there is little chance that your houseplant will 100% revive all by itself.

Sources and References

1. Peace Lily. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. https://www.britannica.com/plant/peace-lily. Accessed online 19 October 2021
2. Perrott, R. and Graf, . Alfred Byrd (2021, September 13). houseplant. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/houseplant. Accessed online 19 October 2021
3. Yellowing Leaves on Indoor Plants. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND EXTENSION. https://extension.umd.edu/resource/yellowing-leaves-indoor-plants. Accessed online 19 October 2021
4. ​ Kennelly, M., O’Mara, J., Rivard, C., Miller, G.L. and D. Smith 2012. Introduction to abiotic disorders in plants. The Plant Health Instructor. DOI: 10.1094/PHI-I-2012-10-29-01. The American Phytopathological Society (APS). Accessed online 19 October 2021
5. Signs your plants are struggling — and how to save them. ABC Everyday. https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/signs-your-plant-is-struggling-and-how-to-save-them/11324798#yellowleaves. Accessed online 19 October 2021