Propagating Snake Plants – How to Easily Propagate Snake Plants
Snake plants (Sansevierias) are one of the easiest to care for indoor plants. You can easily propagate the leaves to make more plants.
Propagating a snake plant is very easy to do. Rooting snake plant cuttings in water is almost a trivial job that anybody can do.
There are 3 easiest methods to propagate snake plants. Each snake plant has pros and cons, but they all effect in an expansion of your Sansevieria choice! Some techniques are more consistent than others.
Let’s discuss them here and learn how to propagate your snake plants easily.
Propagating Snake Plant Leaf Cuttings in Water
Use clean, sharp cutting scissors, and cautiously cut a leaf near the soil. You can propagate a single leaf, put it in a big glass vase for an intense effect. It is better to cut the leaves into multiple parts. That way you can grow more fresh plants from one leaf.
Allow your cuttings to dry out for a few days so that the cut ends insensibly over. This is significant to prevent your cuttings from decaying. Put the leaf cuttings in a glass barrel with just sufficient water to cover the bottom part of the cuttings. Place it somewhere where it gets lots of indirect light. Change the water once in a couple of days.
Next, the waiting period begins. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen any roots in a month. That is quite normal. You may have to wait another month for the roots to develop. And even longer for leaf pups to begin to grow.
Wait until the roots are as a minimum an inch long. Blend in some perlite or pumice for better drainage.
PROS:
This technique is super easy. It is actually entertaining to watch the roots and pups grow from the cuttings.
If you like to grow plants in water, you will love growing and propagating Snake Plants in water. You can just keep them in water, which is an effective way to grow some houseplants!
CONS:
Many attractive variegated varieties will most likely return to the common green Snake Plant and lose the color margins when propagated from leaf cuttings.
Propagating Snake Plant Leaf Cuttings in Soil
Cut the leaves of a healthy Snake Plant at its base, allow the cut surface to dry and settle for 1-2 days. Plant them in potting soil. Pour water well and let it drain.
The soil should not be too dry or moist. Cuttings can decay in damp soil. Monitor the soil once every one to two weeks and water if the top 2″ of soil feels dry under the surface.
Like the leaf cuttings in water, these cuttings will also root and grow leaf pups, which will develop into new plants. They take a bit longer to root than the leaf cuttings in water.
PROS:
This is a single step technique. If you put several cuttings in one pot, you can have an immediate plant! It’s better to mix different varieties in a pot.
CONS:
Similar to leaf cuttings propagation in water, real plants will not grow properly if the cuttings in the soil have different margins or stripes.
Propagating Sansevierias by Division
Division, in horticulture, is a technique of plant propagation where the root cluster of a plant is divided into two or more parts. The roots and crown of each part are kept intact.
Remove your plant from the pot, or dig a clump in the soil. Use a clean and sharp knife or shears to split the root clump. Every division must have roots and some leafy top or pups connected.
Plant the separated clumps in new pots or in the garden. This technique generates more room for new growth as your plant reproduces.
PROS:
This is the technique to practice if you want the Snake Plant to be precisely like the parent plant, particularly those varieties with colorful margins.
CONS:
You will need a bigger plant in order to perform this.
Problems of Propagating Snake Plants
Even though propagating snake plants is very easy to do, it can still happen that it does not work as planned. Some leaf cuttings might just not take as well as others. Sometimes, your snake plant cutting may not grow roots. So give it some more time. The roots could appear as long as the cutting is not decaying and the water is kept clean.
In some cases, the leaves turn soft and brown. Pay attention to the snake plant cuttings which become slightly softer from the bottom, and then turn brown or black in colour. The cutting is decaying. So you don’t want that.
If this occurs to cuttings sitting in water, it is likely that the cut hadn’t dried up entirely before being put in water. When cuttings established directly in the soil start decaying it is generally a sign that it’s suffering from overwatering. This can be triggered when you are watering the cuttings more frequently, or they might be in a pot that is too big or without sewage holes on the bottom.
Final Words:
The best and most reliable method for snake plant propagation is division. Dividing one plant into two or three clusters is generally the best way to go, and they recover rapidly.
We hope you will find the information above to help you expand your snake plant collection in the future!
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[…] Sansevierias looks pretty good alone or grouped with other leafage plants. They can be easily propagated by leaf cuttings. Best for floor […]