Snake Plant | 7 Benefits You Need to Know About the Dracaena Trifasciata
What is the big fuss around Snake Plants?
Why do you see them everywhere and why are they so popular?!?
The answer is real simple; they are one of the hardest plants to kill and easiest plants to grow and care for!
Like the Spider Plant and ZZ Plant, the Snake Plant has so many benefits that are hard to ignore. This is why, in my opinion, these are the 3 must have plants that anyone should have in their homes, regardless of their botanical skills.
Snake Plant and Mother in Law Tongue are the most common names used for the many varieties of Dracaenas, (formerly known as Sansevierias) on the market.
While this plant was first cultivated in China, there are over 70 different species of Dracaenas in the world; they are all native to tropical and sub/tropical regions of Europe, Africa and Asia. New hybrids are produced these days on a regular basis.
Here is my family of Snake Plants! I bought the tall Silver Queen and the little Cylindrical one. I have adopted the small Bird’s Nest in the terracotta pot from a yard sale. I received the Bird’s Nest cuttings in the geometric pot from a friend! That tells you how easy it is to find and spread the Snake Plant love!
Without any further due, here are the Snake Plant 7 most wanted benefits!
1. low light tolerant
Snake Plants thrive in a wide range of light conditions; from bright indirect to low light.
While they favour medium light, they do well in darker areas of your home and office. They will thrive in rooms with small North and East facing windows or a few feet away from a South and West facing window.
Bedrooms that generally don’t have great windows are ideal for Snake Plants. If they do have big bright windows, they generally have some sort of window coverings for privacy purposes. Bathrooms with small windows and basements with low light levels are other ideal locations for Snake Plants.
Whatever you do, it is critical you keep them away from direct sun light. Direct sun light will quickly burn your plant!
This Silver Queen Snake Plant is sitting in the darkest corner of our bathroom. She enjoys the low light and higher humidity levels.
2. drought tolerant
Snake Plants require very little watering!
I water mine every 2 weeks but in the winter, and especially in humid environments, you can push your watering to every 6 weeks!!
Dracaenas are very resilient plants, however, overwatering is the number one cause of death for this plant!
It is really important your Snake Plant has good drainage in order to avoid rhizome (roots) rot. I recommend Succulent/Cactus soil mixed with regular potting soil for proper drainage. If your pot does not have draining holes, make sure you add a good layer of draining rocks and activated charcoal to the bottom of your pot.
3. air purifying
Dracaenas are excellent air purifiers; one of the best!
The air cleaning qualities of this plant are shown in the NASA Clean Air Study. The study demonstrates that Dracaenas help remove toxins from the air, in particular; benzene, formaldehyde, xylene and trichloroethylene.
While cleaning the air from chemicals and mold, Snake Plants, (like many other plants), will provide higher levels of humidity and fresh oxygen to any room.
Useless to say, this quality makes it an amazing plant to clean stale bedrooms and offices air!
The Silver Queen sitting in her peacock “throne”, (she’s a Queen after all) in our bedroom. Not only Snake Plants are ideal corner plants with their tall architectural shape; they are excellent bedroom plants thanks to their air purifying qualities!
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4. tolerant to a wide range of humidity conditions
Dracaenas thrive in a wide range of humidity conditions.
This is why they do so well in both humid environments such as bathrooms, as well as drier environments such as offices, on the opposite end.
The trick is to regulate watering based on the humidity levels of the environment and to always provide proper drainage to the rhizomes, (roots), as described here above.
When placed in humid areas, you will need to water less and have extra drainage to avoid excessive stagnant moist around the roots. In drier areas, water more often but no more than every 2 weeks.
5. easy to propagate
Every species of Snake Plant is extremely easy to propagate. Intuitively, the smaller the plant, the easier it is to cut.
There are two major ways to propagate Sansevierias: Leaf Cut and Rhizome/offset Cut.
I have never tried the Leaf Cut method before so I am not going to speak for it.
I did, however, propagate our little Cylindrical Snake Plant by simply cutting the offsets off as close as possible to the original stems. See picture sequence here below.
Offsets of my Cylindrical Snake Plant.
With a sharp knife I cut off the fresh offsets as close as possible to the mother plant. This way, the offset already has an initial tiny root attached to it.
In this picture you can spot my two Snake Plant cuttings inside little glass jars.
In order to develop bigger roots, I leave the offsets in water for over a month .
The two offsets were moved from water jars into a little pot to further develop their rhizomes and create more offsets!
I placed this little offset directly into a pot with soil and sealed it into a glass jar. It grew so fast! As you can see from the picture, I had to open the jar to let the one stem grow freely!
6. highly pest resistant
Pests problems are not that common in house plants, unless, like me, you choose to place some of your house plants outside in the summer. I learned my lesson; my house plants will always be house plants, and only house plants. No more outdoor summer’s vacations! It took me an entire year to finally destroy the aphids that came in the house with my Hibiscus.
While aphids traveled from the Hibiscus to other plants, they didn’t seem to care much about the Snake Plants…
This is because Dracaenas are highly resistant to pests. The only pests that may attack your Snake Plant are the mealybugs and the spider mites. It seems to be a rare occurrence and it only happens when the plant is left in very poor conditions.
7. highly symbolic
I’ve found discrepancies in my research on the origins of this plant. However, I like to believe the source narrating that the Snake Plant was first cultivated in China and was treasured by its growers for its symbolisms.
In-fact, it was believed that the Eight Immortals granted their virtues of Longevity, Prosperity, Intelligence, Beauty, Art, Health and Strength to the people who cared for this plant.
Why wouldn’t you want to care for a plant like this?!?
decorating with snake plants
There are infinite ways to decorate with plants in general; but even more so with Snake Plants.
The architectural, tall shape of the most common Dracaena Trifasciata makes it an excellent plant for corners of homes and offices.
In big and small offices, (even home office with more that one desk), they can be used as natural partition walls, in lieu of the stereotypical cubicle walls.
Smaller Dracaenas, like Cylindrical and Bird’s Nest can be used as living decor for the darker areas of your home and office.
As mentioned before, there are dozens of different types of Snake Plants. However, we can say that there are two main styles; tall ones and small ones!
Your tall Snake Plant can either be placed directly on the floor in a nice pot, (like this one), or displayed on a nice stand.
Small Snake Plants can be grouped with a common pot style on a shelf or table top.
In this particular picture, tall and small are tied together by the same vintage looking terracotta pots.
This pictures show how versatile Snake Plants are. The Bird’s Nest in the first picture is displayed in a modern, clean lines and light coloured pot; the one in the second picture is displayed in an old, rustic terracotta pot.
Guess what? They both look great!
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Hey Midlife Mom!
Reclaim 10 Hours in Your Day With My 5 Day E-Mail Guide Without Sacrificing Family Time, Even If You Are Already Multitasking From 5 am Till Midnight
Great article… could you touch upon a blooming snake, mine just sent out a flower stalk and I was blown away, miracles of all miracles 😁
Hi Kimberly!
Thank you for your comment!
Wow!! A blooming Snake Plant is such a rare occurrence!
Does it smell really good as people describe it?
Which type of Snake Plant do you have?
Would you share a picture please?
Cheers!
Cecilia
Enjoyed reading