Why Should You Trim Your Snake Plant?: 3 Easy Ways to Pruning your Snake

YouTube video

Caring for Your Snake Plant

You don’t need much work to keep your sansevieria healthy and pretty; it’s a simple thing to do. However, here are some things to keep in mind.

Light: You may want to locate this plant inside the house near a window or place it where it will get several hours of sunlight each day. In other words, it is a good idea to choose places near windows or balconies.

Temperature: If we’re looking for an ideal temperature range, it’s between 15° C and 20° C. Although it stands up to temperatures of 30 ° C perfectly. What you should avoid is if you live in a drafty place. This can cause sudden temperature changes.

Fertilizing: Plant fertilization should be performed during the period of greatest growth of the snake plant. This time period is spring and summer.

Watering: we generally talk about irrigation by saying something like: “you should water the plant every X days”. In this case, let’s simplify things. Just add water when the soil in the container begins to dry out. The watering shouldn’t be so much that it turns to a puddle, too much water will cause the roots to rot.

Soil: In terms of soil, they are less demanding, but should still verify that the substrate has good drainage capacity.

Pruning Tools

In general, pruning any plant other plant requires more or less extensive list of tools. It is assumed that at least four or five items are required. But snake plants will be the exception.

The only tools you need to prune these succulents are a sharp knife and scissors. Everyone at home has access to them so it won’t be a problem to get them.

Please remember to disinfect the blade of your knife or scissors before starting your pruning project. This will prevent the possible spread of diseases to the plant.

Disinfect First!

We saw how to get the tools, but now let’s see how to disinfect them. You will see that it’s completely straightforward and won’t take you long. So it doesn’t always need to be done before you start pruning.

One way you can sanitize your cutting blades is with alcohol (ethanol). Get a piece of cloth and soak it in isopropyl alcohol and gently rub the blades. After that, allow it to sit a few minutes to allow more effective disinfection, and after that, begin to prune your snake plant.

Bleach is an indirect method of disinfection that doesn’t require strong chemicals. To use bleach, soak your tools in water containing bleach for half an hour. It is important that the mix contains 1 part of chlorine per every 9 parts of water. After that, you are able to start working.

Tips No. 1: Snake plants propagate from leaves, so tasks like pruning are excellent opportunities to make new plants of this awesome succulent. Think about it before you throw away the cutting debris.

Why Should You Prune Your Snake Plant?

You might think pruning sansevieria leaves does not have any real significance. Your plant will survive if you are unable to trim them, but there are still a few things to consider.

In addition to their roots, these plants have leaves, which are crucial to their overall appearance. If they look bad, the plant appears shabby. In most cases, cutting damaged or diseased foliage is the sole reason why you must prune. Doing this will improve the overall appearance of your plant.

Although it is a slow-growing succulent, at some point its size may become excessive. With pruning, you can control the size both in height and width. You can transplant the plant into a bigger pot if you don’t want to prune the plant.

Last but not least, do be aware that you may need to prune the plant in order to improve its shape because the leaves may grow curved or sloping in directions we do not wish them to. We can enhance the aesthetics of these leaves by trimming them.

How to Prune Your Snake Plant?

Having discussed why pruning is necessary, let us now see how the leaves must be cut in order to meet the objectives we seek.

Reduce Size

We must start by cutting the leaves that are on the edge of the plant if we want to reduce its size. Taking into consideration that snake plants grow from the center, the edges will always have the oldest leaves, so you should start here.

Make the cut as close to the ground as possible, because you must remove the leaves from their base. As soon as you have made a cut in the base, you can force the blade upward from the top, and the blade will come off.

When you remove the leaves from the edges, the plant will be narrower, but you may also have to decrease the height. You might have to cut the leaves that have grown too tall. These are typically found in the center of the plants. Being in the center, you will not be able to access the base of the leaves with the cut, but if there is a stump in the center, no one will see it.

Cleaning

Sansevieria leaves are not usually very bad, so this pruning will not take long. For the rest, I don’t have much to tell you, you just have to look for leaves that are sick, dry, or very old and remove them.

Do not leave pruning debris near other plants if the leaves have symptoms of disease, or you may spread the disease.

Improve Shape

A clean succulent undergoes the same process when it is pruned in attempts to improve its shape. All you have to do is find the faulty blades and cut them. Keep in mind that each sheet should be removed as close to the base as possible.

Tip No. 2: To make sure the leaves are the right size or shape, you may have to cut several sheets. Avoid cutting more than 1/3 of the foliage’s growth at a time in order not to harm the plant. Keep in mind that it is a slow-growing plant, so it can be difficult to recover from a lot of pruning.

When is the Best Time to Prune?

It may or may not be appropriate to prune at a certain time depending on its nature and severity.

Almost any time of the year one can cut a leaf that is not in good condition, or to trim a couple of leaves that are not oriented correctly. Nevertheless, if what you need is considerable size reduction, cutting off much of the foliage, you should wait to do so until spring or summer. Being more active during those months, the plant will be able to recover from pruning cuts more quickly.

When the pruning is complete, watering can be followed by an irrigation, and if you have not done this during the season, now is a good time to do so.

Was this helpful?

Yes
No
Thanks for your feedback!