How To Divide Sansevieria For Beginers - Clever Bloom

Hello! Thank you for being here today.  You’re here because you have a snake plant that needs to be divided and you’re not quite sure how to do it.  Dividing snake plants is super easy. I’m going to show you, step by step, how to divide Sansevieria.  With just a few things (you probably have laying around the house), you’ll be well on your way to propagating the easy way!

*UPDATE – Sometime between 2020-2022 the Sansevieria plant (a.k.a Snake Plant) was scientifically renamed as Dracaena in the Asparagaceae family.

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You’ll need:

-A snake plant

-A sharp clean knife

-A pot

-Potting soil (I use a cactus mix for my snakes)

-A hard surface

I’m using a “Bantel’s Sensation” Dracaena.  As you can see, it has two pups attached.  Now, there are different times and reasons to divide your plant.  Ideally, you would wait for them to be about 4-6 inches tall.  I chose not to wait (mostly because I was testing the “you should wait” theory).  It’s totally up to you!  I’ve done this about 10 times and have had a 90% success rate.  We’ll talk about the 10% in a minute.

Dividing:

1.  Brush away as much dirt as possible and lay your plant down on a hard surface.
2. Take your sharp clean blade and cut just about in the middle of the rhizome.  You really want to make sure you are left with some of the rhizome and at least 2-3 roots.  If there are no roots you should wait.
3. Place your little one in new potting soil and give it a bit of water (which should last a while).
4. Wait for soil to completely dry before watering it again.

That’s it!  You’re all done!  You may have been told to let the pup sit out of soil for a few days to allow the rhizome to callus over before putting it into soil.  This is where my 10% comes into play.  As you can see in the photo, my Bantel’s Sensation had 2 pups.  I put one directly in soil and the other one I left out to callus over.  That one shriveled up within days and died.  Now, this could very well be due to my cutting it prematurely (size and age).  But since then, I have put all my pups directly into soil and I have had no problems.

If you visit my Instagram, look for the purple pot and you can see how this pup is doing.  He has really great color and you can see the beautiful white stripes which makes Bantel’s Sensation Dracaena so desirable.  Dracaena are slow growing so he’s still small but his roots are growing strong!

Have any questions?  Leave a comment, I’d love to chat!  If you liked how easy this was, you might also like How To Root Plant Cuttings In Water.  Thanks for visiting!