By propagating your snake plant, you can grow it even more, without having to buy it back. If you are a plant lover, we think you need even more. We think you’ll enjoy seeing snake plants if you have a lot around the house.
You can propagate your snake plant using a variety of methods. One method is to cut off the healthy leaves and regrow them in water after cutting them off. Nevertheless, this method is useful for those ‘off’ leaves that bend or break when they fall.
In addition, cutting them off in water is a great way to use those extra leaves that you remove from your snake plant when you want to change the look. Continuing our discussion on how to propagate snake plants in water, we’ll now take a look at our methods.
How to Propagate Snake Plants in Water
You will need the following tools:
- Water
- Knife or scissors that are sharp
- Vase, jar, or heavy glass
- Hormone for rooting (optional)
Here is a step-by-step guide to propagating snake plants in water:
Ensure that you are using very sharp and clean scissors and knives. It is important that you cut as sharply and as cleanly as possible.
The snake leaves near the soil should be carefully cut off. Cut your leaves and dip the cutting in root hormone after you have cut them. After that, immerse the leaf at its bottom in water. Water should cover about 25% of the leaf.
You should cut a leaf as close to the soil as possible. The leaves of your plant can be cut into sections and then placed in water if they are large.
Maintaining the same orientation of the leaf as when it was in the soil is a requirement. The leaves of your snake plant will be highly polar, so roots will only grow if the tips of the leaves closest to the soil are submerged in water. As a result, if the leaf’s orientation is incorrect, it will not grow new roots.
The bottom of the cutting can also be shaped in a ‘V’ shape which can improve the success rate of snake plants’ cuttings and also serves a variety of purposes. By cutting in a V shape, the cut edge will be exposed to water on a larger surface area. Furthermore, it prevents the cut edge from pressing against the bottom of the glass or vase. As a result, it will be easier to identify the bottom of the leaf.
There may be a problem with your snake plant’s leaves being top heavy. The propagation process therefore calls for a larger vase or glass.
Place the snake leaves in a warm, indirect light-filled room. Make sure you change the water in the glass or vase every week or whenever the water looks cloudy.
This is the beginning of the waiting period. If you want to see roots grow, you will have to wait quite a long time. It’s okay if you’ve been waiting for a month but the root has not yet appeared. That’s just the way things are. You may have to wait another month for roots to grow and even longer for leaf pups.
Before you plant the root sprout into well-draining succulent soil, wait at least an inch for the roots to grow. Make sure to plant them as deep as the water line on the leaf when planting them in soil. If they are ready, the shoots will poke through the ground. Don’t worry about small shoots, they will grow when the soil is ready. To improve drainage, you may also need to add perlite or pumice.
Although this method is the easiest, it will take the longest steps, especially if your plant does not receive much indirect light.
What Would Make You Propagate Your Snake Plant?
You can propagate your snake plant for a number of reasons. When you find your snake plant isn’t growing well, it can also depend on what you face. Additionally, you may want to save your money by not buying the snake plant again by utilizing your previously-purchased snake plant.
The following are a few reasons:
- Perhaps you accidentally overwatered your snake plant and now it has root rot. Well, if you think that it’s not too bad, you might still be able to save your plant by cutting those parts which are still healthy.
- Additionally, damaged leaves with sunburn marks can also be reused, as well as leaves that grow too tall and bend.
- Perhaps you just want to change the overall appearance of your plant a bit by removing a few leaves.
Why Are Your Cuttings Not Growing?
Keep calm, please! Occasionally, transplanting cuttings will cause them to go dormant for some time. Nonetheless, it will last weeks, if not months. Therefore, if your cutting is not dead, do not throw it away.
It is best to wait for it to grow and ensure that your cuttings are provided with ideal conditions. You can identify your cuttings as dead if you see the leaves turning yellow and mushy, and the roots are also mushy. Your plant may still be viable if the leaves are still green.
Your snake plant can also be repotted after cutting away dying parts.
Additionally, snake plants are slow-growing plants. You may not see growth for a long time since your plant grows more slowly than other plants.
A second reason why your snake plant doesn’t grow is that they are growing roots under the soil. Cuttings sometimes have to develop a lot of roots before you can see any growth above the soil. When your cuttings have not progressed for several months, you should check the root growth to see if the plant is still alive.