The Simple Winter Prep Your Peace Lily Plants Need To Thrive All Season

Peace lilies are a popular houseplant, due in large part to how easy they are to care for. Knowing all the tips and tricks to caring for a peace lily will help keep yours thriving year-round, but there's a surprisingly simple step you might be overlooking when it comes to winter care. Peace lily plant care isn't much different from caring for other indoor plants during winter, except for the crucial detail of humidity. Peace lilies don't require as much water and humidity during winter, but they don't enjoy drying out entirely either.

You may be wondering, if they need less humidity than usual, shouldn't you move them somewhere drier or mist them less? In actuality, it's the opposite! Humidity levels tend to drop significantly in winter, as running your heat dries out the air in your home, and the cold air coming in from outside is already pretty dry. To keep your peace lilies moist enough to stay fresh and perky, you'll need to increase the humidity around it. While there are a few different ways you can do this, one of the simplest is to make a humidity tray for your peace lily to sit on.

A humidity tray, also called a pebble tray, is an easy way to increase humidity around your plants. You can also use a humidifier if you have one, but pebble trays are a great alternative since they don't require much money or effort to set up. All you need is a wide, shallow dish that's flat on the bottom and large enough that your potted peace lily can sit in it. The dish can be made of almost any material, but do not use anything absorbent. Unglazed terracotta, paper, or other materials that will soak up the water won't work for this, as you need the water to sit in the tray.

Next, add a layer of pebbles to the tray. Aquarium gravel, pebbles, and river rocks are among the more common options, but anything that won't absorb or dissolve in the water will work. Your flower pot will be sitting on top of this layer, so test it to make sure it's stable and adjust it as needed before you add the water. Once you're satisfied with your pebble tray, add enough water to cover the bottom of the dish, but not enough to cover the rocks. The base of your pot should be above the water, so that the water can evaporate and become humidity around your peace lily's leaves rather than being absorbed into the plant's soil through the bottom of the pot.