Yellow fungus on my peace lily

10 years ago

Hello everyone,

I'm fairly new to this forum - hope someone can answer my query. I got a peace lily houseplant for my living room (I keep it by the window) about a year ago. It was thriving pretty well, sprouting a new leaf every month, until 2 months ago when I started noticing yellow colored fungus in the soil of the pot, which I have been cutting out as they grow.

Yesterday, I noticed a new kind of fungus from the bottom of the pot (from the drain holes). I also noticed that the leaves are drooping in a very inorderly fashion(unlike when they droop when it's thirsty).

Does this mean that my peace lily is a goner? Have anyone of you noticed this in your plants?

I'm in Seattle, and I water my plant only when it goes droopy.

Please see the attached pics.

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Comments (6)

asleep_in_the_garden
10 years ago
Not certain that the fungus is a dangerous sort(but honestly I'm not really sure),but if it were me,..to be on the safe side,..I'd take it out and wash off all the old soil and pot it over again in fresh mix.

Others will comment shortly. :)

This post was edited by asleep_in_the_garden on Sat, Jun 29, 13 at 8:13
pelargonium_gw
10 years ago
This looks funny, lol! To be serious however, I will advice you to give the plant new soil, and see what happens. It seems like your watering scedule is fine, sometimes too heavy watering can encourage fungus to grow. But you water when the plant is droopy, that doesn't seem to be too much. Maybe the pot is overcrowded, and the plant needs to be split up and repotted in two or more pots? I wish you luck!
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Which direction is the window (4' from the plant) facing? Actually, I'd place the PL closer to the window. Sounds like your overwatering. Now that days are getting shorter, and if you're running the ac, rooms are cool/cold therefore soil takes longer to dry. Also, you said you have a growing pot sitting atop a ceramic pot..By any chance, is ther water build up in the outter pot? If this is happening, and water's touching the bottom of the inner plastic growing pot, this means the roots are sitting in water, and really getting too much. Be sure to dump water out of outter pot 1/2-1 hour after watering. IMO, I'd set plant in a brighter location, dump any wtaer in the outter pot, and water only when soil feeds slightly dry..Toni
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OK Dave & Karen - here's my Friday visit update. I found the plant to be totally wet. The problem - as Karen pointed to in an earlier reply - is that there are too many cooks etc. There is one lady volunteer in whom I have full confidence to look after the plants, but there is another male volunteer who is over-eager on watering plants. I can tell just from looking at the top of the soil that he has saturated the plant from the top down. My coffee stirrer test confirms that. He will be told to leave the plants alone. The lady volunteer is at the Club every day, & I told her to stop all watering to allow the plant to dry out & wait until it shows signs of wilting. Then resume weekly reservoir watering. Meanwhile, the yellow leaves have shriveled & there are no new ones, but the flowers are not looking as healthy as they were. Also the lady volunteer said (before I even mentioned the matter) that in the mornings & early afternoons she will move the plant to the outer area where there is more daylight & sunlight, then in the afternoon when the sun gets hot she will bring it back inside. So I'm hopeful that in a few weeks time the plant will be back to a healthier state.
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Why not post a few more pictures including one of the soil and one of the whole plant, and tell us how you water and what kind of light the plant gets? I suggest you find out exactly what's wrong before doing anything else. Fortunately there are a lot of people here who have lots of experience raising all sorts of plants and dealing with just about any nasty thing that can harm them. I have a few guesses, but a little more information will help folks figure out what's going on and the best way to treat it. Fungus gnats live in the soil, so you have to do something to the soil to get rid of them. I treat them by periodically getting all of my plants to dry out at the same time, because they can't survive without wet soil. I've heard of people getting good results by dissolving part of a mosquito dunk in water and then watering lightly with it. I'm sure someone will pop in and give you some details. Often, the kind of wilting and yellowing leaves I see in your picture are signs of watering issues, and usually it's overwatering. Many people don't believe it's possible, but watering while the soil at the bottom of the pot is still wet keeps the rootlets that carry water to the plant from breathing and ends up killing them, making it look like the plant is thirsty when the problem is drowned roots. I can tell my plants are starting to get dry from their weight, but I check the soil moisture daily with a sharpened wooden dowel (just switched from a cheap moisture meter) stuck all the way to the bottom of the pot, and don't water until the first time the tip feels dry. At that point there's still moisture in the soil, but if I wait any longer the plant will wilt. At that point I water thoroughly until a lot of water has drained from the bottom of the pot and let the pot drain thoroughly. There are ways of helping this along, but we can get to that later. Best of luck!
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Jayme needs a haircut. ;-) "I don't believe I'm heavy handed on watering because it rarely floods through the drainage hole at the bottom of the pot and when this does happen I always empty the tray so that it's not standing in water." We know your soil holds water, but let me show you why your contention doesn't. Let's say I have a horrible soil that holds 6" of perched water at container capacity. Since that's probably Greek to most growers, it means that after gravity is done pushing water out of a recently saturated soil and it has JUST stopped draining, the bottom 6" of soil is fully saturated and essentially airless. This means that the function of ALL roots within that 6" tall column of saturated soil is being limited by a lack of oxygen. Using your contention, everything is fine if I only add enough water to raise the ht of the saturated soil column to 5-7/8", because water won't drain until the ht of the saturated soil column is greater than 6". Essentially, there is no difference of note between a saturated soil column of 6" vs 5-7/8"; which means that over-watering is surely in play as a potential limitation. Too, if you water consistently so no water exits the pot, you ensure ALL the dissolved solids in fertilizer solutions and tapwater remain in the soil. This increases the mineral salt level in the soil (TDS) and can very quickly skew the ratio of a singular nutrient to all of the others, which creates another significant issue. I can clearly see from the list of ingredients that you unwittingly made a very water-retentive soil. Compare what your soil looks like to these soils, which are what I grow in: You can clearly see there are going to be large pores between the high % of large particles that will be filled w/air instead of water after the soil stops draining subsequent to being saturated. Ideally, you would move in that direction. I promise it will make a BIG difference in your ability to manage your plants' moisture and fertility needs. This will provide information that will help you turn your plant around. and This link, which goes into considerable detail about How Water Behaves in Container Soils, probably represents the largest step forward you can make as a container gardener. If you make the effort to understand the concept it outlines, it should change the way you look at container media and significantly increase the rewards you get from your growing efforts. Al
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rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
10 years ago
Peace, it would be very helpful if you would let us see the whole plant and also the potting mix.

Is it drooping all of the time? Are the leaves a healthy color?

There have been many discussions in this forum about yellow mushrooqms in potting mix...it's very common and not usually indicative of a problem, at least for a while. The fungal body will continue to work and grow, feeding on and breaking down the substance of your potting medium. That's certainly not good in the long run.
peace66
Original Author
10 years ago
Hey everyone,

Thanks a lot for your suggestions! After I posted my query on this forum, I cut out the fungus, watered the peace lily and woke up next morning to find it all back to life,lol! I'm attaching a new picture of the plant which I just took.

Rhizo - I think your questions will be answered if you take a look at the picture of my plant. As for the potting mix, I use Miracle gro. Also, what do you mean regarding the outcome of this in the long run? Why does this fungus grow anyway? Is it something to do with humidity. We have had a very humid summer this year.

Pelargonium - I certainly don't think it's overcrowded since I repotted it a few months ago into a bigger pot.

Asleep - don't you think that the new potting mix will have more food for the fungus to thrive? Also, I have very recently repotted it.

Thanks!
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
10 years ago
The mushrooms come from the potting soil. They are somewhat ubiquitous to peat based media. MiracleGro is primarily composed of rather finely processed peat moss, just exactly what this mushroom likes.

I'd like to ask you about your watering habits. When it's time to water, do you really drench the whole soil volume? The reason I ask is because peat heavy mixes can become hydrophobic, developing dry pockets that are very difficult to re-wet. In my opinion, that makes MiracleGro a challenge to work with.

Spaths are sensitive. They like to have moisture at the roots, but will develop root/crown rot very quickly if overly saturated. A porous, fast draining potting medium allows us to water frequently and freely with very little fear of root rot.

Since this fungus feeds on the organic content (peat), it (the peat) will slowly decompose into smaller and smaller particles. Before too long, the roots won't be able access oxygen at all.

You should know that those little mushrooms are merely the temporary fruiting bodies of the real fungus....a network of threadlike hyphae and mycellium that grow and feed in the potting medium 24/7. Removing the mushrooms means nothing in the life of the fungus.....much like picking a flower doesn't hurt a plant. That's what I mean about the long run.
peace66
Original Author
10 years ago
Hi Rhizo,

Thanks for following up. As for my watering habits - I wait for my plant to tell me if its thirsty - once the leaves droop, I water it until it starts draining from the drain holes. I also make sure to water it from all the sides of the pot. So I guess I do drench the whole of the pot soil.

So what do you suggest I do with this situation? Should I re-pot it with a new potting soil this time? What kind of a pot do you think works best for drainage - one with holes at the bottom or the sides?

P.S - this mushroom drama never happened when the drain holes were at the sides, i.e. in the previous pot. It only started when I repotted it and replaced the pot with a bigger one, albeit this time with drain holes at the bottom.

Thanks!

Yellow fungus on my peace lily

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asleep_in_the_garden

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Yellow fungus on my peace lily

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