Have you decided to give fertilizer to your snake plant? If that’s the case, I have some information here about the essential things you should understand before fertilizing snake plants.
What Fertilizer To Use
It can be extremely difficult to even start your garden without choosing a fertilizer. The options out there are endless, and there are some fertilizers that work better than others. For my part, I recommend avoiding many organic fertilizers, including “fish meal”, “blood meal”, and “worm poop”. Different kinds exist, but most of them are so expensive and have little nutritional value that they are of little worth.
The only advantage of organic fertilizers is that they are environmentally friendly. However, I would argue that normal fertilizers can be just as environmentally friendly if used correctly. You won’t be negatively impacting the environment with your normal “un-organic” fertilizer so long as you don’t dump it down the drain or into the river. That’s my take on buying organic fertilizers, and you can listen to me or ignore what I say.
Schultz 10-15-10 Plant Food Fertilizer is the one I use personally. It is not a sponsored product; it is one I have personally used and enjoyed. The one I’ve been using has never caused me or my plants any problems at all. Snake plants and many other indoor plants can benefit from this high-quality and nutritional product. You will also enjoy the long shelf life of it. Mine has been with me for over a year and I’m only halfway through it. Any plant, including a snake plant, will appreciate a healthy potting medium.
Understanding Your Fertilizer
What is the next thing you should know before starting to fertilizing snake plants? The key to properly fertilizing your snake plant is to understand how this fertilizer will work with its soil and why it needs to be fertilized. The 10-15-10 on its label indicates the percentage of NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium(K)). Every fertilizer you ever buy will have these numbers listed so that you can compare the NPK values.
Among Schultz 10-15-10 Plant Food Fertilizer’s active ingredients are 10% nitrogen, 15% phosphorus, and 10% potassium. A small percentage of the remaining ingredients goes toward micronutrients for your snake plant. The three main macronutrients to which plants need access are nitrate, phosphorus, and potassium. The nitrogen in the soil helps to preserve its greenness, while the phosphorus and potassium in the soil improve the growth of roots and flowers.
What’s the point of putting all these nutrients into your plants’ soil? Snake plants absorb nutrients and water through their roots during watering to be used by the plant, therefore depleting the soil of nutrients over time. In the absence of fertilization, your plant would eventually run out of key nutrients, displaying yellow leaves, irregular leaves, etc. If you see yellowing leaves on your snake plant, use the method of deduction to determine what is causing it before you presume it simply needs fertilizer.
Snake plants’ leaves may turn yellow if they are old or overwatered (and snake plants are particularly sensitive to overwatering). Make sure other factors aren’t causing yellow leaves. Don’t assume it needs fertilizer or more nutrients, as this type of thinking can cause you more problems than you need.
How Often To Fertilize Snake Plant?
Snake plants do not need to be fertilized on a specific schedule or at a particular time of year. Snake plants need to be fertilized depending on how much sun they get.
The following are some general guidelines that you can use: Fertilize every 3 months if you have high lighting Medium lights = fertilize twice a year Low lights = fertilize once a year If you fertilize your snake plant more often than the guidelines above, you are risking nutrient toxicity. A crisp leaf edge, or a sudden yellowing of the leaves, can be seen as evidence of this. In high light, a plant is consuming nutrients rapidly to keep up with its high energy requirements.
Here is a thing to keep in mind before you fertilizing snake plants. Since plants in low light are not able to absorb nutrients as quickly, they don’t require as much fertilizer. Since snake plants grow slowly and often advertise doing well in low light, you don’t have to fertilize them too often. In case you have questions or doubts about how much light your snake plant receives, you can be more conservative by only doing it once every year.
