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The growth of my peace lily has stunted. Should I fertilize my peace lily with humic acid? Can it substitute NPK?

I brought this plant home 4 months back, when it was new to our home. Its growth was marvelous (3-4 leaves per month), but with the passage of time its growth slowed down by a great extent, to hardly 1 leaf in a month.

It receives copious amount of light, and the humidity is doing fine at 60%. I allow the soil to dry between watering.

After seeing slow growth I repotted it last month, in a new pot with 2 inches larger diameter then the previous pot. It didn't show any sign of transplant shock.

The root system was healthy, the soil is very well drained, and the pot has several holes at bottom.

I cant figure out the problem. The plant is not doing very well even though everything seems good. To me it looks healthy, but the growth is very slow and the tips are getting brown.

brown tips whole plant

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  • A photo of the plant would be helpful; if not, please explain 'stunned', and give more information, like how long you've had the plant, if its in a pot, when you last repotted, and so on, as much information as possible
    – Bamboo
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 10:19
  • I have edited the question, it would be great if you could please look into it one more time..!
    – user16887
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 10:38

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I beg to differ - now you've added a photograph, your plant looks to be doing just fine, apart from the yellow/brown tip, which is something you asked about previously. The fact that its growth rate may have slowed down is inevitable, no permanent (as opposed to, say a crop or vegetable) plant just keeps on thrusting out loads of new leaves every week. As the plant gets larger, growth rate slows down, and in particular, if you are in the northern hemisphere, changes in daylight levels will be affecting it, even if the plant is indoors. Light level changes and daylight length are perfectly natural events which allow a plant to rest a bit during winter months, although houseplants may still put out a new leaf or two during that time.

Humic acid is essentially a soil conditioner - if you are not fertilizing your plants, then something like Baby Bio houseplant food added to the water when you do water will be perfect,but actually, your plant is essentially healthy and growing well. The problem appears to be your expectations regarding its growth rather than a problem with the plant.

Check the rootball in spring - if it needs it, pot up into a larger pot again.

UPDATE: I've just noticed that there's a brown part in the centre towards the right, might be an aborted, now dead new leaf, or part of a dead stem. Also some shredding of a couple of leaves round the edges, which looks more like physical damage than anything else. Regarding the brown part, I'm not sure what it is, but if it's an aborted new leaf, perhaps your watering regime needs adjusting. Also bear in mind, when you repot next, try to find a pot that isn't so much narrower towards the bottom - it just means you'll need to pot on sooner because it reduces the space available for root growth.

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