Question
QUESTION: Hi Will,

A friend has a gorgeous large leaf Spathiphyllum, about 3-3.5 ft tall, planted in a 12"-14" pot (an eyeball measurement based on my own plant pot sizes). She's had this plant for well over a decade and is rewarded recently with baby peace lilies, sort of like suckers. The babies are about 6"-8" high and my friend wants to separate the babies from the parent to give me the little spaths.

Can you advise the best way to perform the required surgery so that mother and babies are least damaged? This is a very lovely peace lily that has great sentimental value and we don't want to har it.

Will the babies eventually grow as large as the mother plant or will they be weaker for being "suckers" (at least they sort of look like suckers.)

Do we need to wait until spring to separate the plants? I assume that the baby peace lilies have independent root systems from the mother plant but am not completely certain.

Any help you can provide is will be greatly appreciated! I'm so excited that my friend is willing to share her prized spath with me!

ANSWER: Hi Chloe,

Suckers is the correct term for the baby plants at the base of a Spathiphyllum. Suckers rarely develop into strong, healthy plants and certainly will never be anywhere near as large as your friends Spath. So I am not sure it is worth the effort.

If you decide to try it, it can be done at any time of year. Try to do it so that you disturb the main rootball as little as possible. The suckers do have separate roots, but they are so intertwined with the mother plant's roots that it is hard to make the separation easily. Try removing the suckers with a small number of their roots pulled away from the mother plant. If the main rootball starts to get pulled apart, then you will jeopardize the mother plant and you don't want to do that. If the separation does not occur easily, then I suggest you abandon your efforts.

Your friend is very generous, but I don't think this will accomplish what both of you are hoping for. Sorry I don't have better news for you.

I have written an article on Peace Lilies that I will email for free to you (or anyone else) who sends a request to me at [email protected].

Please let me know if any of this is unclear or if you have any additional questions.

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Regards,
Will Creed, Interior Landscaper
Horticultural Help, NYC


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Will,

Thank you for your answer. Although it is disappointing that separating the suckers from the parent plant isn't as easy as we thought, it is better to be armed with that knowledge before doing something harmful to my friend's peace lily.

So how do peace lilies propagate if not through suckers?

Thanks,
Chloe

Answer
Hi Chloe,

Sorry to disappoint, but you would have been far more disappointed to learn many months down the road that your Spath was not what you expected.

In nature, the suckers do have a chance to spread away from the mother plant because they are not confined to a pot and can continue to draw on the mother plant's resources as they develop. Natural Spath species flower and produce seeds that are the primary way for this plant to propagate itself.

Nearly all potted Spaths available today are hybrids and their seeds are often sterile so that is not a good method of propagation. Professional growers use a method called tissue culture to produce new plants. Basically tissue culture involves taking a tiny portion of the plant and growing it in lab conditions to reproduce a clone of the original plant. This is not a practical method to try at home.

Spaths can also be propagated by division, meaning you take the existing plant and slice down through the middle of the plant's rootball and create two plants. However, I don't recommend this either because it is very traumatic and you may lose both divisions.

So although Mother Nature has developed ways to perpetuate this species, none of those ways are very practical for the layperson. Unlike many other plant species, Spaths are not easy to propagate. It is best to save your money and purchase a new one that you like.

Here I am apologizing again for more bad news! Sorry.