please help my peace lily!

i've had a larger peace lily for about a year and a half now. when i bought it at my local gardening center, it had one fully bloomed spathe ( i believe that's what it's called) and one that was just starting to grow. that was around may of 2018. for the first month or so, it was pretty normal - the fully bloomed spathe was beautiful and the growing was doing well. however, i put indoor plant food (some sort of miraclegro liquid food) and over the next month or so, the tips of the spathes and leaves began to brown. I'm assuming this was because of the plant food, but i can't be sure as i was not very knowledgable of plants around then. since then, the flowers and several leaves have completely browned up and died. i cut them out, following the internet's instructions, and then went on vacation for a month. i left the plants to my grandmother. she, unfortunately, never watered them and the bigger leaves started by browning and then broke off. the leaves that were completely dead i've since cut off but many of the older big ones are left, and broken and brown. several new leaves are forming and many are doing well, however several grow perfectly fine and then start to break or grow holes. i believe a spathe was starting to grow, and it was very tiny. it was white and then the outside completely browned- almost black- i removed it because i was sure it was dead and opened it and there was a white thing that i believe to be the spadix? i'm not sure why it died because a lot of the leaves are doing alright. i really need your help because my peace lily doesn't seem to be doing well! if you need pictures, i will try to figure out how to insert them. thank you!

 

Photos would help. See Attach photos and files. Post them as a reply here.

 

Brown leading edges usually means too wet. If you were close to following manufacturer's directions on the fertilizer, that's not a problem. The plant wants light, but no direct sunlight. If it's in a window other than north, move it. They grow very slowly and use concurrently less water and fertilizer. Don't water unless the soil it is dry to your touch, and don't give it too much water, somewhere between 15 to 20% of the total volume of plant and soil. If the plant and soil is one quart, give it 5 or 6 oz. of water when the plant is dry. Get used to looking at the plant from some distance where you can sight a particular leaf against some object. The plant will droop when dry and stand taller when properly wet. You will get a feel for how long it takes for the plant to use up the water when you give it exactly the same amount of water. Mark your calendar and after some months you will be able to see a cycle in days; 7, or 10, or whatever. With that in mind, you will be able to remember a schedule; every week, two weeks, or calendar 10th, 20th, 30th, 10th, ad infinitum. From then on, it gets really easy and your plant will flourish, forever. Fertilize once every two months. And that's all there is to it, unless there is a different diagnosis.

 

I like to lift the pot after watering to see how heavy it feels. Make sure that it is not still that heavy when you water it again - at the point that it starts to droop, feel how heavy that is.

 

thankyou so much for the advice! definitely learned a lot of new tricks. i suspected it may be watering (whether too much or little) and this has absolutely helped clarify a lot of things. I'm attaching pictures now and I'm sure you'll find that you were right!
thanks,
jess

thankyou so much for the info on how to attach photos - saved my life! i've attached several photos. the larger leaves are the oldest, and then some of the newer leaves (some seem healthy, while others break off in the middle of growing), as well as the dead spathe. hope this will help!

 

Overall, your plant doesn't look as bad as your post! Maybe the leaves that looked bad had mechanical damage rather than disease. Remember, leaves are not forever. They have some lifespan and towards the end of useful life they will go downhill just like us. The new leaves look like they should. The flower dying prematurely is hard to speculate on. I'm not crazy about the soil in the pot. It's standard commercial fare, but it has a high percentage of recycled paper which makes it retain moisture longer than I like. But it's there, just live with it, -it will last a long time in your situation. As long as you become comfortable with a watering system and have the right light conditions, you can just coast.

 

i am not very fond of the soil either after doing research, but I've read that its better to just leave it and only repot it with new soil if there's a problem. thanks to your reply, i know that my peace lily isn't doing quite as bad as i'd imagined. and as for the flower - i can't tell either, its just very unfortunate and i hope it doesn't happen to all the new ones. thanks again for all the help, it's much appreciated!