Dividing my Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata)

It's beginning to crack it's pot and needs a new home, and this seems like a good time to divide it. Do I just go at it with a clean sharp knife? I won't touch it until I get some advice.

Marie

Yes- knife or scissors- whatever floats your boat. ; ) I let mine callous over before putting dirt back over the wound for both sections. It should take maybe a day or more. Have fun!

Cheryl

Thank you Cheryl.....I hadn't thought about letting it callous over. That plant really does thrive on neglect doesn't it?

lol Yeah- I set one of them aside for the winter- didn't water it at all and it didn't show any signs of distress in the Spring.

Marie,

I never use either knife or scissors. The (usually) orange colored rhizomes are brittle, and they break cleanly with just a snap. The plants never suffer- haven't lost one yet doing it this way.

Cheryl,

Just to prove a point to my DH, one xmas the cats knocked one of my common sans out of it's pot. He was skeptical as I told him about how tough these plants are, so I told him I'd leave it out of the pot for a year and it would come back and live.

Of course, he didn't believe me, so I did it! I left the plant in good sun, on it's side, with no water of any type for one year. No sprays, nothing!

After that time had passed, I took the poor dessicated thing and potted it up. Within a month, it looked like it had a chance to live, and about six months later, it resumed giving me offsets. The parent plant never did recover it's looks, but it lived, and that's all it had to do to prove my point to my DH. He doesn't argue any more...at least about plants. :D

I know Aspidistra's called the cast-iron plant, but Sans should have the title!

Mach.....thanks for a simpler way of doing it. I've been thinking that a division of it might be just the thing in a grouping of shaded potted plants on my deck this summer. It's too hot to do much outside today except goof off and maybe jump in the lake. Looks like a mid-week activity.....along with a ton of other gardening chores outside.

Marie

Machikoneko: Like your story. I have a story about mine. It was in a pot right beside our back door all summer long. I had watered it and turned the pot several times during the course of the summer. One day I watered it and yellowjackets came swarming out. They had taken ALL the dirt and MOST of the roots out of the pot, hollowed up into what little roots of the sans were left and built a 3 layer nest. My husband put on his bee suit, hat and veil, got a 5 gal bucket of water, put the sans down in it and left if for 3 days. At the end of 3 days some of the yellowjackets were still alive and he dipatched them. The sans has since filled out the pot and is scheduled to be repotted in the near future. They take a licked and keep on a living.

LC2sGarden,

WOW! Your story is better than mine! I've never had anything more dangerous than ants and pill bugs in my pots. Do you keep bees? (Just curious as to the bee suit, etc.)

I stand by my statement that Sans should have the title of "Cast Iron Plant"!

Those are two interesting stories. Thanks for sharing. Mine is pretty much neglected and needs to be repotted and cleaned up a bit but it does the same thing. It has been knocked over so many times, picked up and stuck back in its pot, and keeps on growing. They are amazing plants.

Jesse