A houseplant expert's guide to getting your peace lily to bloom

The good news is getting a peace lily to flower can be as easy as the care for the rest of the plant, once you know what they love.

Not enough light is the number is the number one reason I've found mine reluctant to flower.

It's my fault. Many of my peace lilies are relegated to the medium to lower-light rooms as I save the brighter spots for plants that need more light. That results in lush, dark green foliage, but flowers become few and far between.

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And a stubborn peace lily that won't bloom even with perfect conditions? It may simply be the wrong time of year.

Some of my overachievers seem to never be out of flower, but in the right conditions, most peace lilies flower in both spring and autumn.

Since their blooms can last a good one to two months with good care, you can extend flowering almost year-round.

Temperatures impact flowering also. Although peace lilies tolerate a wider range of conditions compared to many of our tropical indoor plants, I find too hot or too cold can slow or stop them flowering. I've found the sweet spot for flowering is above 18°C at night to the mid- to high 20s during the day.

Another reason for your peace lily not flowering may be age – it simply may not be old enough yet.

Some growers use a combination of carefully controlled conditions, fertiliser and plant growth hormones to induce flowering early, ready for sale.

However, just because your peace lily was flowering when you brought it home doesn't mean it's mature enough to bloom again in your conditions.

It does vary, but in general, allow a good one to three years for your peace lily to start blooming.

The last main factor that could be in the way of flowering is food, whether it's the wrong food, or no food at all.

Your typical indoor plant fertiliser will be focused on foliage and therefore higher in nitrogen. This directs your plant's energy to growing foliage first, not flowers. That's why a typical flower fertiliser is lower in nitrogen, and higher in phosphorus and potassium.

Shifting from a foliage to a flower fertiliser in spring helps fuel flowering.

Leaf growth matters too. They are like a plant's solar panels, so if your peace lily is on struggle street, focus on fixing foliage first and the flowers should follow.

My go-to flower fertiliser is GT Flower Focus which has the bonus of including high calcium.

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Most fertilisers have little to no calcium. If your fertiliser is missing calcium, Grace Cattermole, head of sales and marketing for Gellerts Nurseries in Karaka in south Auckland, recommends the trick of "every time you finish off a bottle of milk, pop some water in the bottle, give it a shake and give that to your peace lilies."

Here's a fun fact: What we think of as a peace lily's flower is in fact a modified leaf, called a bract. That's the white part of the "flower", called the spathe. That's also why the "flower" sometimes turns green instead of white, typically a sign the light level is too bright and the modified leaf has started to photosynthesise.

Cupped inside the spathe is the bumpy spadix, and the real flowers, which are near microscopic, are found on the points of the spadix.

This story originally appeared on Stuff and was republished with permission. Read the original here.

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