Today, I’m going to show you how to get a fuller snake plant. There are basically two ways of doing that: one providing the appropriate or proper care for this plant, and combining house plants is a nice way to get a fuller plant. So I’m going to show both methods in this article, as well as how to propagate this plant.
Light
Now, despite being told that these are low light plants or that they can thrive in low light, they actually like a lot of light or a bright location. And that’s actually the secret to getting them to grow faster. They prefer a very bright location, and in some cases, they can actually tolerate direct sunlight for a few hours. I have mine on the floor just below a south-facing window, and it gets direct sunlight. These leaves are starting to turn yellow, or they’re getting bleached. This can be a sign that they’re receiving too much light. So after I repot this plant today, I’m actually going to pull it back about a foot or so. It’s basically just the tips that are turning yellow; the rest of the plant looks really healthy.
Now, if you don’t have good natural sunlight, you can always add a grow light. And there are many different options out there in styles, depending on your budget. And I attribute the rapid growth or the fast growth with this one due to the higher light. I know this one’s been propagated about two or three times, and it just continues to put out new growth.
Soil
Now, for soil, it’s pretty simple. You just want to make sure that it is in something very well-draining. But what does that actually mean? There’s no real secret to a well-draining mix. I know there are different recipes out there, but you just want to make sure that it isn’t like a very heavy regular potting soil that’s too heavy; it retains too much moisture for too long. You can add things like peat, orchid bark, perlite, all those sorts of amendments. And you can also add sand.
Watering
I’m going to use this bird’s nest here to explain watering. Now, we’re all guilty of this, including myself: we are terrified to overwater these houseplants. But we are actually under watering them. Now, the problem with overwatering is most times, you don’t have it in a proper soil mixture. So you have it in just a regular potting soil that is meant to retain moisture, and then in combination with not enough light, then these plants stay wet for too long, and those roots will end up rotting. So that’s the issue with root rot.
So in the event that you have it in legitimate soil and you give it adequate light, then you ought to never dislike watering. It’s really not necessary to focus on how much water; it’s about the dirt sort.. So that is commonly the very thing you need to see when you give it water, is it just fundamentally going directly through from the top out the lower part of the channel opening. And that’s one thing that I always recommend as well, having a pot with a sufficient-sized drain hole, just so it can drain out any excess water.
Fertilizer
Now, just another couple quick things. These plants, they’re not really heavy feeders, so if you fertilize maybe once a month, that will be absolutely fine. I tend to dilute my fertilizer to a very small amount, and then I will fertilize with each watering. That’s just because I have so many houseplants; it’s tough for me to remember which ones actually got fertilizer, so I just use a small amount diluted in water with each watering. Other than that, I really haven’t had any issues with pests, but you just want to make sure that you consistently clean off these leaves because they can get pretty dusty and dirty.
Propagation
There are two ways to propagate this plant. You can take an individual leaf cutting, or you can separate these little offshoots or pups. So it does send out a horizontal rhizome, and then it pushes out a new growth point. Like I said, I’ve propagated these in the past, so I basically took one of these offshoots and I’ve traded it for other plants. But a little word of warning here: it does take a long time, even to see just small growth. I think it takes about a year and a half. I’ll leave it up in the top corner . But what you want to do, and I’m going to use this kind of faded leaf here, is take either some pruning shears or I have this utility knife and just slice off the leaf as close as you can to the part of the stem so that you get a section of leaf like this. Now, you can just simply let this callus over and stick it in a container or water. If you want to make multiple plants, all you have to do is just cut it up into sections, so just take little cuttings like this. Now, the thing about this method is that you have to make sure that you have the bottom portion facing the bottom or placing this in water, and this one on top. If you have it upside down like this, as far as I know, you’re not going to get roots from here; it’s only going to be from the bottom. So you simply need to ensure that you have the plant in the right direction. So I very much prefer to spread it out that way. Presently, the main explanation I can see as online for the justification behind this is all there is to it builds the surface region, yet as far as I can tell, it likewise keeps every one of the roots from being squashed when you place it in a holder or water like that. Otherwise, it doesn’t really affect the root development; you’ll just have some squished roots on the flat portion, and you’ll have some nice roots just kind of poking through on the V-notched versions. And like I said, seeing all the roots as well as the new growth point, specifically the new growth point, I just think it’s so cool how it grows from literally an edge of a leaf into an entire new plant. Now, the problem with this sort of propagation, if you have a variegated plant like the Saria Whitney, in my experience, as it grows, it basically loses that variegation and reverts back to what the original plant is. So if you want to maintain variegation, you’re going to have to do it by the division method.
And I guess the last thing about this sort of propagation or single leaf propagation is I’ve only ever done it in water. I do not know how it propagates if I was just to stick it in soil like that. So yeah, if you’ve ever done just soil propagation with these, let me know if it does work. I feel like it’s going to get very dehydrated fairly quick, especially with this one here. And I think I forgot to mention that with watering, if you are concerned about knowing when to water, some wrinkles along the stem here. So that’s a good telltale sign that your plant is under watered or that it needs watered when you start to see a bunch of wrinkles on the stem, the soil is very dry, and you don’t remember the last time you actually watered the plant. So if you see those signs, definitely give it a good, thorough soaking.
Okay, now I’m going to take this out of the pot. Like it is solid in here, and you can see that it’s got some indentations on there. So this, like I said, is literally trying to bust out of this pot. Holy cow, I might actually have to break this one. Okay, well, it’s broken already, so I’m just going to snap this and cut through because this thing is just, holy cow, look at this rhizome. Look at that, it just snakes along the soil and then it pops up when it feels like that’s a good spot. So I’m just going to tear this pot. Look at these roots, oh, there’s another growth point. This is the rhizome; it’ll stem from one of the, I guess some other plants, it’ll push out this little rhizome, and when it finds a nice area to pop out, then you’ll get new growth. This one’s got two rhizomes popped through. I’m going to leave these ones attached to their parent plant, but I’m going to try and isolate where this one comes from, right there, there’s that orange rhizome piece. So I’m just going to take my utility knife and just slice that like that until it’s all the way through. And then you can just break it apart. I heard a few more snaps. So there, now it is divided, and I just broke off the rhizome from this one right here. But this, in itself, can be another plant as well because it has a sufficient root system like that. So you can plant this in the pot, which I’m going to do, and same with this one. It’s got a little risone popping through there as well. And here is the remaining chunk. It’s got three offshoots, so again, you can cut this one off the main plant and propagate it however you want. So I’m just going to slice that one through and then divide it like that. So now you have an individual cutting like this; you have multiple individual cuttings.
Now, I have no way of proving this other than just from experience, but I’ve read that if you separate these cuttings here as well, they grow much faster because they want to push out new growth. So yeah, propagation apparently makes these grow faster as well when you divide them because they just want to push out new growth points. I have another one here; this is the Moonshine or Moonlight. It’s just got some lighter variegation on it. This one just wants to fall out of the pot. So the soil is extremely dry; it’s got some dead leaves there as well. So I’m just going to clean this one up a little bit. Here’s a dead, dying leaf in there. Just pull that out. This one’s all busted up here as well, so it’s taken a few falls over the last number of months. It’s tipped out of the pot; it’s been knocked over by the dogs. So not much roots on this one. Oh, it’s getting a new growth point. There’s a little risone popping through. It’s not in a chunky mix, so it may have had root rot at some point because it’s got a very, very small root system. So I’m just trying to knock that away as much as I can.
Okay, here’s the new pot. I just have a little stone in the bottom just covering the drain hole there, just so it doesn’t, all the soil doesn’t flow out. So it’s a much larger pot. Now I’m just going to size up all these cuttings here first before I add soil. I just want to see if there is enough room for the smaller little bird’s nest s area. So I’m about to put that not too far off, and I will add these ones in. So I figure I will forget about it until further notice since that looks very great. It looks quite full, and there is sufficient space on the sides for the plants to extend somewhat more. So I don’t want to just jam everything in there and then have no ability for the plant to push out new growth points. So I think I’m going to leave it as is, but I am going to add obviously some soil into the bottom, and then I’ll pot these up.
So this is what I’m using for soil. I don’t have a ratio; I basically just grabbed a couple of scoops of the fox farm potting soil. There’s some orchid bark; I did have a kind of pre-mixed sand and soil mixture as well. So there is sand. I added a little bit of perlite, so this is what my soil mixture looks like. It should be well-draining; there’s lots of soil amendments in here. So yeah, there’s no special recipe. Just throw some stuff in there: some orchid bark, some peat, some potting soil, tropical potting soil, and you should be good to go.
Now I’m just going to put some of this in the bottom of the container here first. You obviously don’t want to pot these plants too deep. So I’m just going to start arranging these cuttings something like that. This one needs to go down a bit; it’s got a lot more soil. So I’m just going to dig some of this up here first. I’m going to add this one in; I’m just going to put some of that soil back. This one can go right up against the edge like that, and then the rest can go around this one. They’re not as deep. Then this one, I can put in there. Just to show you how deep I’m actually planting these, just something like that. So I’m going to add the soil to just above where the old roots are, making sure they’re all tucked in there like that. I’m going to put that cutting right there just so that growth point is slightly above the soil. Now this guy, hopefully it doesn’t block your view. I’m just going to put right there, and then this last one, I’m going to stick right there.
Now I’m going to hold all of these together, and I’m just going to add a little bit of soil here just to help settle this one. The Moonshine or whatever it’s called just wants to tip over, so I just want to add some soil in there just to help kind of pack that down a little bit. And I’m just holding the leaves from the top here, and I’m just going to add soil just around the sides and just lightly packing it down. I’m just going to finish with a little bit of a smaller cup just so I can get into these tougher spots here. And then I can use the pencil to poke down any soil around the edges of the pot and even in the middle. You can just kind of push the soil around to where you need it, make sure it’s all packed down, and it’s going to stay upright. This one’s a little floppy just because of how tall this cutting is, so I’m going to add a bunch of soil around the sides here and just pack it down there. A little bit of a gap on this side over here; I’m going to take this over to the shower here, give the leaves a good spray off just so that they are nice and clean, and then that will help settle the soil here as well.
There, I think that’s pretty well it. Okay, here is the finished product. I just took it over to the shower to spray off the leaves of any dust and dirt and all that kind of stuff as well as just to help settle the soil. And then as a little experiment, I just added those two little leaf cuttings into the soil just to see if soil propagation works as well. But otherwise, I think that’s going to be pretty much it. I hope this helps you get a fuller snake plant not only from care but other options like combining houseplants into this nice full pot. I think it looks absolutely fantastic. Take care, everyone. Bye.
