How to care for sansevieria at home: watering, lighting, top dressing

San­se­vieria is a peren­ni­al ever­green plant belong­ing to the Agave fam­i­ly. Under nat­ur­al grow­ing con­di­tions, it can be found in savan­nahs, semi-deserts and desert regions of Africa, Mada­gas­car, India, South Flori­da. Pop­u­lar­ly, san­se­vieria is called pike tail, moth­er-in-law’s tongue, leop­ard lily, African hemp, dev­il’s tongue, and cuck­oo’s tail.

Botan­i­cal descrip­tion

Among the san­se­vieria, which num­ber about 60 species, there are epi­phyt­ic plants. The suc­cu­lent cul­ture has earned pop­u­lar­i­ty thanks to the beau­ti­ful paint­ed dense foliage extend­ing direct­ly from the rhi­zome. Some species have a stem.

Dark green leaves are dec­o­rat­ed with yel­low or white trans­verse or lon­gi­tu­di­nal stripes, with or with­out a wax coat­ing.

Depend­ing on the type of foliage, it can be wide and nar­row, flat and thick­ened, long and short, oval and round, xiphoid. Some indoor species have foliage grow­ing strict­ly up, or in dif­fer­ent direc­tions. Some plates are dec­o­rat­ed with a point.

Among the species there are fast- and slow-grow­ing ones, which give an increase of only 3–4 leaves per year.

A group of san­se­vieria plant­ed in one round low pot looks beau­ti­ful. An inter­est­ing option for dec­o­rat­ing the premis­es is to plant a pike tail in one row in an oblong pot, and the arrange­ment of such con­tain­ers one above one. Can be com­bined with oth­er indoor flow­ers.

Types of sansevieria

Among the vari­ety of species and vari­eties, each grow­er can choose for one that suits the con­di­tions that the own­er can pro­vide him.

Sansevieria large

Native to trop­i­cal Africa. The squat rosette includes from 2 to 4 fleshy leaf plates 40–60 cm long, 15 cm wide. The leaves are paint­ed light green. On the entire sur­face there are trans­verse stripes of a dark tone, the edge is dec­o­rat­ed with a bor­der of a red­dish hue. The plant pro­duces a race­mose inflo­res­cence, 80 cm high, at the top of which are snow-white flow­ers or with a green­ish tinge. Each flower is 5 cm in diam­e­ter.

Sansevieria Guinea or three-lane

A rep­re­sen­ta­tive orig­i­nal­ly from South Africa has firm­ly entered the life of flower grow­ers. The three-striped vari­ety is a peren­ni­al plant with light leaves and dark stripes over the entire sur­face, which are locat­ed hor­i­zon­tal­ly. Upright leaves extend from the creep­ing rhi­zome to the sides.

It blooms 2 times a year with light green small flow­ers col­lect­ed in a pan­i­cle. Cut leaves do not lose their dec­o­ra­tive effect, they can stand in water for a long time, they even take root.

Laurentia

A vari­ety of three-lane san­se­vieria with xiphoid leaves reach­ing a length of 1 m. A yel­low­ish-white bor­der runs along the edge. Spike inflo­res­cences are formed right at the base. The flow­ers are white.

Craig

A vari­ety of Guinean san­se­vieria. On light leaves are sat­u­rat­ed green stripes. Tax­o­nom­ic cat­a­logs do not include this vari­ety, so it is pos­si­ble that Craig may be a species in its own right.

Silver and Golden Hahnii

These vari­eties have a squat rosette, con­sist­ing of fleshy wide leaves, up to 25 cm high.

Sansevieria duneri

It grows nat­u­ral­ly in West Africa. In one rosette, there are up to 15 leaf plates, paint­ed in light green, on the sur­face of which there are blur­ry lon­gi­tu­di­nal stripes of dark green tone. On a droop­ing pedun­cle is a race­mose inflo­res­cence, includ­ing white tubu­lar flow­ers. Dur­ing flow­er­ing, the room is filled with a pleas­ant aro­ma, rem­i­nis­cent of bloom­ing lilacs.

Sansevieria Liberia

There are up to 6 leaf plates in the rosette, from 35 cm to 1 m long. It is note­wor­thy that the flat leaves are par­al­lel to the ground. On a dark green sur­face there are blur­ry stripes of light green. The edge is dec­o­rat­ed with a red­dish bor­der. The rhi­zome is under­ground. It blooms with white tubu­lar flow­ers with a pun­gent odor.

Sansevieria Graceful or Graceful

The stem of a peren­ni­al plant reach­es 5 cm in height. Oval leaves are locat­ed at the base. On a gray-green sur­face, gray-beige trans­verse stripes are clear­ly vis­i­ble.

Sansevieria Hyacinthus

Flow­er­ing occurs in win­ter. At this time, small flow­ers bloom on a long pedun­cle, thin­ning out a strong aro­ma. Plant 30 cm tall. On a dark back­ground of lance­o­late leaves, strokes resem­bling a “W” are notice­able.

Sansevieria cylindrical

The plant got its name due to the shape of the leaves, resem­bling a cylin­der. Cul­ti­vat­ed in the 19th cen­tu­ry. Creamy white flow­ers tinged with red are car­ried in a race­mose inflo­res­cence crown­ing a long pedun­cle.

How to care for sansevieria at home

Each type of pike tail has its own care require­ments, so before you buy a pot­ted plant, you should find out if it is pos­si­ble to cre­ate good con­di­tions for it in a par­tic­u­lar apart­ment.

The spec­tac­u­lar appear­ance and unpre­ten­tious­ness in the con­tent made the moth­er-in-law’s tongue a pop­u­lar plant for grow­ing in the house.

Basic care require­ments:

1. San­se­vieria does not need fre­quent feed­ing. In spring and sum­mer, once a month, com­plex fer­til­iz­ers are applied under the root, intend­ed for feed­ing dec­o­ra­tive and decid­u­ous plants.

2. In order to pre­vent burns on the leaves, it is rec­om­mend­ed to place a pot with a pike tail on any win­dow sill, except for the south­ern one.

3. The opti­mal loca­tion is the win­dowsill, the only way to pro­vide the plant with suf­fi­cient light­ing.

In order not to destroy the san­se­vieria, it is impor­tant to mon­i­tor the mois­ture lev­el of the earthy coma.

Temperature

There are no strict rules. In sum­mer it is desir­able to main­tain the tem­per­a­ture at + 22–23 ° C, in win­ter — not low­er than + 16 ° C. If the ther­mome­ter table drops to a crit­i­cal lev­el — below + 16 ° C, the appear­ance of the out­let will notice­ably suf­fer.

Air humidity

Leop­ard lily needs nor­mal air humid­i­ty, as exces­sive­ly dry or humid air adverse­ly affects the plant. From time to time, dust should be removed from the leaves with a damp cloth.

Watering

The humid­i­ty indi­ca­tor is the per­fect tool for grow­ing indoor flow­ers. With it, you can deter­mine whether the flower needs water­ing or not. For irri­ga­tion, it is advis­able to use set­tled tap water at room tem­per­a­ture — no rain or dis­tilled water! In sum­mer, water­ing is plen­ti­ful, in win­ter — scarce.

Transplant rules

The moth­er-in-law’s tongue requires a trans­plant only if the entire pot is filled with the root sys­tem. Young spec­i­mens are trans­plant­ed into a new con­tain­er 1 time in 2 years, adult spec­i­mens — 1 time in 3–4 years.

For plant­i­ng, you can buy ready-made soil or cook it your­self, tak­ing:

1. 1 part of leaf land;

2. 2 parts of sod­dy soil;

3. 1 part sand;

4. 0.3 parts per­lite.

If, when exam­in­ing the pot, the roots pro­trud­ing from the drainage hole become notice­able, it’s time to trans­plant. San­se­vieria loves to grow in clay pots. If you plant a flower in a plas­tic pot, grow­ing, the root sys­tem deforms the walls of the con­tain­er, it can even break them and come out. In addi­tion, the fleshy leaves have weight, so the plas­tic pot may not with­stand the load and roll over.

Atten­tion! Due to the fact that san­se­vieria has a super­fi­cial root sys­tem, pref­er­ence should be giv­en to a wide and not deep pot.

Fertilization

For good growth and devel­op­ment, the plant needs to be fed for 2 sea­sons — in spring and sum­mer. Once a month, an earth­en ball is watered with liq­uid min­er­al fer­til­iz­er for dec­o­ra­tive leafy crops or for suc­cu­lents.

Atten­tion! Exces­sive nitro­gen con­tent will harm the pike tail.

When grow­ing species with bright foliage and orig­i­nal pat­tern, high dosage of fer­til­iz­ers should be refrained from, as the pat­tern may merge with the main col­or. So that the leaves do not become monot­o­nous, it is rec­om­mend­ed to apply fer­til­iz­ers, 3 times low­er con­cen­tra­tion than writ­ten in the instruc­tions for the drug.

Winter care for sansevieria

The rest peri­od of the leop­ard lily is weak­ly expressed, so you should not change the con­di­tions of deten­tion: reduce water­ing and reduce the tem­per­a­ture regime.

It is nec­es­sary to arti­fi­cial­ly cre­ate a rest peri­od only if there is a desire to see the flow­er­ing of san­se­vieria. How­ev­er, the plant, even with­out an appro­pri­ate peri­od, pro­duces a pedun­cle that usu­al­ly appears in sum­mer.

Due to the fact that dec­o­ra­tive foliage is val­ued more than non­de­script flow­ers, expe­ri­enced flower grow­ers do not cre­ate a dor­mant peri­od for a flower. Although, if you give the flower a rest, it will respond with grat­i­tude and begin to grow faster.

Blooming sansevieria

Pike tail blooms in sum­mer, in the sec­ond year after plant­i­ng. Flow­er­ing lasts only 2 weeks. On a thin and long pedun­cle, small milky flow­ers bloom, shad­ing green. If you look close­ly at the flow­ers, they look like a lily. And the smell — just beyond words, how pleas­ant it is! It is pos­si­ble to con­tem­plate flow­er­ing in full dis­so­lu­tion of flow­ers only in the evening. An amaz­ing sight — a scat­ter­ing of dairy flow­ers against the back­ground of juicy, paint­ed foliage.

Trimming Rules

Since the plant does not have a trunk, only leaf plates, the need for prun­ing dis­ap­pears by itself. Dam­aged, dried and dis­eased leaves are sub­ject to removal.

Propagation of sansevieria

Pike tail can be prop­a­gat­ed by leaf cut­tings, lat­er­al process­es and divi­sion of the rhi­zome.

leaf reproduction

For root­ing, a healthy leaf is select­ed with­out any dam­age, cut it into pieces in the trans­verse direc­tion so that the length of each seg­ment is at least 5 cm.

After the pre­pared cut­tings have dried a lit­tle at room tem­per­a­ture, they must be plant­ed in the pre­pared soil. Cut­tings take root bet­ter in the sand. Above them, it is desir­able to build a mini-green­house, cov­er­ing the con­tain­er with plant­i­ngs with a cap from a plas­tic bot­tle or cre­at­ing a frame and throw­ing a plas­tic bag over it. It is nec­es­sary to water care­ful­ly, with­out over­flow­ing, it is bet­ter from above than through the pan. By water­ing over the sur­face of the soil, you can con­trol the amount of water.

The stalk will take root for 1.5 months. Small leaves will serve as evi­dence of root­ing. Now you need to trans­plant into a new pot with a nutri­ent mix­ture.

Note! Root­ing with a leaf cut­ting is suit­able for mono­chro­mat­ic species. If you root a var­ie­gat­ed leaf, there is a high prob­a­bil­i­ty of los­ing stripes — a young plant may have plain foliage.

Reproduction by side shoots

The breed­ing pro­ce­dure is best done in the spring, when the plants have a peri­od of active growth. On each bush you can see branch­es — side shoots. They should be cut with a sharp knife, sprin­kle the cut with acti­vat­ed char­coal, let it lie down for a while at room tem­per­a­ture and plant it in the pre­pared sub­strate. Water­ing is mod­er­ate, with­out fanati­cism. You can cre­ate a green­house, although the plants take root well with­out cre­at­ing green­house con­di­tions.

Reproduction by division of the rhizome

Dur­ing the trans­plan­ta­tion of the moth­er bush, you need to care­ful­ly remove the san­se­vieria from the ground, light­ly shake off the ground, cut the rhi­zomes into equiv­a­lent divi­sions, each of which has a growth point. After that, plant each of them in a sep­a­rate pot, slight­ly moist­en the soil.

The method is suit­able for plain and var­ie­gat­ed vari­eties. As a result of repro­duc­tion by divi­sions, young spec­i­mens retain all the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the moth­er plant.

Atten­tion! When root­ing, it is impor­tant to observe water­ing — cut­tings, leaf plates and lat­er­al process­es do not like “swamps”!

Growing sansevieria: possible difficulties

If you do not cre­ate cer­tain con­di­tions for grow­ing a plant from the Agave fam­i­ly, you may encounter some dif­fi­cul­ties.

The foliage becomes soft, turns yel­low, dies off at the base. The main rea­son is exces­sive water­ing or water ingress into the cen­ter of the out­let. To save san­se­vieria, you will have to remove the plant from the ground, shake off the soil, remove all dam­aged parts and trans­plant into new soil. When the root sys­tem rots, you need to cut the rhi­zome into pieces, select healthy divi­sions and re-root.

The appear­ance of red­dish-brown spots on the leaf plates, bor­dered by a yel­low stripe, is a sign of plant infec­tion with fun­gal dis­eases.

If dark brown spots appear on the leaves, it means that the flower pot is kept in a room with high humid­i­ty or the soil is con­stant­ly wet.

When the ground is dry, the leaves are sus­cep­ti­ble to rot. The prob­lem may arise as a result of keep­ing san­se­vieria in a cold room. You can save the flower if you remove all the dam­aged foliage and rearrange the pot with the leop­ard lily in a warm room.

By observ­ing the agrotech­ni­cal meth­ods of cul­ti­va­tion and care, you can achieve the flow­er­ing of san­se­vieria, admire the white-cream flow­ers and enjoy a pleas­ant aro­ma rem­i­nis­cent of the smell of vanil­la.