Indoor
Snake Plant
Not pet-safeDracaena trifasciata
- Category
- Indoor
- Light
- Low light
- Watering
- Every 12-14 days
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Mature size
- 60-90 cm tall, upright
- Pet safety
- Toxic or irritant to cats and dogs if chewed. Keep out of reach.
Growing note
The plant most likely to survive a week you forget about it entirely, since overwatering kills it far faster than neglect does. Fine for most homes but keep it away from a puppy that eats everything in reach.
Growing Snake Plant in Indian apartments
Root rot in Indian apartments usually isn't really about watering too often, it's about the pot: a snake plant kept in its plastic nursery pot and slipped inside a decorative pot with no drainage hole ends up standing in whatever water collects at the bottom regardless of how carefully it's watered on top. Always check that excess water actually has somewhere to go. Snake plants are also more sensitive to cold air than their tough reputation suggests, and a spot directly in an air conditioner's draft can leave leaves mushy, translucent, or collapsed at the base even though the room itself isn't especially cold. Propagating from a leaf cutting works well for the plain green form, but variegated types like Laurentii lose their yellow leaf margins when grown from a leaf cutting, the new plant that emerges reverts to solid green; keeping the variegation means dividing the rhizome at the base instead, which carries a piece of the original growing point along with it. Repotting only every two to three years is enough, snake plants actually grow better somewhat root-bound.