How To Divide A Peace Lily Houseplant

Peace lilies are beautiful plants with dark green foliage and pure white flowers. They’re often given as gifts and kept as houseplants because they’re so easy to grow. Even easy to grow houseplants have a downside, however – sometimes they just keep growing. With a little luck and understanding, it’s not uncommon to keep a peace lily in the same pot for years. Eventually, it will get too big and start crowding itself, in which case it’s either time to repot or divide.

Dividing peace lily plants is a great option because it doesn’t lead to overwhelmingly large pots in your home, and it makes for great gifts! Keep reading to learn more about peace lily propagation and how to divide a peace lily.

Peace Lily Plant Division

Division is the ideal way to propagate plants that grow separate bunches of foliage out of the ground. (It doesn’t work for a plant that has a single stalk or trunk). Peace lilies grow most of their foliage directly out of the soil though, and a single plant can be divided many times.

When dividing peace lily plants, the first thing to do is to get it out of its old pot. Turn the pot on its side, grip the foliage, and gently try to rock it out of the pot.

Once your peace lily is out of the pot, examine the spots where the foliage is connected to the roots. Every new plant will have to have some foliage directly attached to roots. As long as you meet that requirement, it’s up to you how many new plants you want. You can even do as few as two by just splitting the whole thing in half or removing a small section from the outside.

Depending on how big your root ball is, you might have some difficulty splitting up the roots. If your peace lily is still small, you can probably just pull the roots apart with your hands. If it’s large, and especially if it’s root bound, you’ll probably need a serrated knife. If using a knife, simply start at the bottom of the root ball and slice upwards until you’ve split the root ball into as many pieces as you want. You will be cutting through roots using this method, but that’s okay. The plant should be able to recover.

Once you’ve divided as many times as you want, plant each of your new peace lilies in a pot that allows some room for growth. Fill the pot with growing medium up to the level of soil from the old pot. Give it a good watering and place it in an area with good light.

The plant may wilt from shock to begin with, but leave it alone and it should recover.