Why does my peace lily have no flowers?

On a peace lily this is a plant in good health that never puts up a white spathe. The leaves are glossy and a good size, new ones keep coming, and the plant looks well, but a season, or two seasons, passes without a single bud on a stalk.

The most likely cause is light. A peace lily survives in a dim corner, which is why it is sold for dark rooms, but the entry says it flowers only in medium, indirect light, and the Royal Horticultural Society says that a plant in deep shade will rarely flower and grows very slowly. Flowering costs the plant far more than making leaves, and a plant that cannot pay does not try.

To confirm it in a minute, look at where the plant stands at midday. If it is more than a few metres from a bright window, or in a corner where you need a lamp on to read, the light is too low.

Two other causes are worth ruling out. A plant that is young, or one that has just been moved into a much larger pot, will skip a season while it fills the pot with roots. Too much nitrogen is the other: very large, soft, dark green leaves on a plant fed with a general feed throughout the year point to it, and the entry asks for a weak feed every two weeks in spring and summer, monthly in autumn and none in winter.

Expect the change to take a season, not a fortnight. A mature peace lily flowers in spring and again in late summer of its own hemisphere, and the plant makes its buds well before they open. So after a move to brighter light, the next flowering round is the first that will show it.

What this plant wants

The fix

Move to brighter indirect light; mature plants flower in spring and again in late summer.

Read on

It will not flower

The same sign on any plant, with the causes in the order they are likely.

Peace lily care

Light, water, feeding, repotting and the rest of the entry.

Check it in the diagnoser

Opens with the plant, the part and the sign already chosen.