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Snake Plant

The sansevieria genus, commonly called the snake plant, represents a kind of win-win house plant. Snake plants prefer dry soil, which translates to low watering frequency. There are myriad species available to collect, so there’s the excitement of rarity with the robustness of a hardy plant!

Survival strategy

Snake plants are often relegated to windowless corners because people started labelling them as a “thrives in low light” kind of plant. I prefer to describe it as: starves gracefully at less than 50 foot-candles. If this is the case in your home, you should just barely moisten the soil only after long periods (weeks) of being bone dry. If you’re up for it, you can give the soil a complete soaking and then put the plant near a window getting 300 or more foot-candles. Leave it there for a week so it can actually do some growing before you force it to starve again.

Growth strategy

Giving snake plants enough light to grow is easy because of the wide range of acceptable light intensities. They will be happy with as low as 100 foot-candles and as high as 1,000 foot-candles. In full sun (meaning exposed to direct sun for more than four hours), however, the greenness may start fading. Thus, bright indirect light is preferred.

Soil management

A snake plant stores most of its water in its thick leaves, so the soil can be left bone dry between waterings. When you do water, it’s a good idea to gently aerate the soil to ensure that water penetrates as evenly as possible. If the snake plant leaves appear wrinkly, you should give the soil a good soaking immediately. Because snake plants can handle prolonged dry soil, it tends to form clumps that are difficult to remoisten. If the soil hasn’t been changed in over a year, it might be a good idea to repot. Use any well-draining mix—typically potting soil with coarse sand added or premade “cactus” mix will suffice.

Subjective life span

A nursery-grown snake plant (for example, the usual tall kind, Sansevieria trifasciata ‘Laurentii’) will have strong, broad leaves, like swords. After a year or two, you may notice that new leaves will not be as wide if your plant has been living in sub 100 foot-candle light. After several years, some of the oldest leaves will flop over and bend permanently, even if you give the soil a good soaking. If you find that unsightly, you can cut off those leaves.

A Snake Plant for the Office

Day 1

A Sansevieria trifasciata destined to be an office plant. The Ikea outer pot didn’t quite fit the standard nursery pot.

Propagating Snake Plants

1

After about a year of growing at a mature size, snake plants will send up offshoots, which can be separated once they have reached about a third of the size of the mother plant.