Burned 3 hours fighting a fungus on my peace lily

I noticed yellow spots on my peace lily leaves and thought it was sunburn, so I moved it to a darker spot for two weeks. Turned out it was root rot from overwatering, and now the plant has lost half its leaves. Has anyone else made a wrong guess and made their plant worse before figuring out the real problem?

2 comments

2 Comments

abbyr961mo ago

Not "has anyone else", but my friend Sarah did this exact same thing. She was so sure her snake plant had spider mites because of some weird white stuff on the leaves, so she sprayed it with neem oil every day for a week. Turns out it was just mineral buildup from her hard tap water, and the neem oil actually burned the tips of the leaves. She ended up losing three of the biggest leaves before she figured it out. I felt so bad for her because she was trying so hard to help it. Sometimes the wrong guess really does make everything worse.

mason_knight1mo ago

Honestly, that reminds me of a time my buddy Dave was convinced his Peace Lily had root rot, so he yanked it out of the pot and trimmed off half the roots, then jammed it back into dry dirt. Turns out it was just droopy from being root bound, and he basically gave his plant a haircut for no reason. @abbyr96, your friend Sarah's story hits close to home, I felt bad for Dave too because he spent the next month watching it sulk in the corner. Sometimes the internet makes us overthink these things real quick.