If you’ve noticed that your snake plants aren’t growing, you may be wondering what’s happening. Whilst not particularly fast-growing houseplants, they should grow new leaves and stretch upwards over time.
This article will help you work out why your snake plants aren’t growing, and make the changes required to get it thriving again.
In most cases, snake plants aren’t growing because of a lack of light or water. Snake plants may also suffer from damage such as overwatering, pests, and diseases.
Keep an eye out for signs of stress in your plant, increase the lighting, and monitor the plant’s water needs.
What To Do If Your Snake Plants Aren’t Growing
Snake plants stop growing for two main reasons;
- A plant lacks one or more of the essential conditions for healthy growth, such as light, water, or nutrients.
- A problem, such as pests, disease, temperature stress, acclimation, or overwatering, has caused your snake plant to stop growing.
Since there are so many potential causes, do a little detective work to figure out what’s wrong before trying to fix your plant.
Finding the cause of most problems is usually pretty straightforward, and then fixing them is usually pretty straightforward as well.
Throughout this article, we will explain the common reasons why snake plant isn’t growing, and answer some specific questions that we can help you with.
How Can I Tell If My Snake Plants Are Healthy?
First, you should inspect your plant and the conditions in which it is growing.
- The leaves should be stiff and upright, with minimal browning or yellowing. Even if the leaves aren’t growing completely straight up, it doesn’t necessarily mean your plant is unhealthy.
- A drooping leaf may mean that the roots have rotted due to too much watering.
- Look for signs of pests or disease. Be sure to check the leaves on both sides as well as the soil.
- Check for roots growing out of drainage holes, which may indicate that your plant is rootbound and unable to grow.
Are Snake Plants Growth Slow?
Houseplants such as snake plants grow relatively slowly. In general, their leaves grows 1-3 inches per month, depending on the suitability of their growing conditions.
During the growing season, they produce 2-4 new leaves at a time from their rhizomes. They can easily produce 6-10 new leaves in a year.
Once rooted, snake plants will typically spread about 1-2 inches per year and will need to be repotted every 2-3 years to keep their growth unrestricted.
Snake plants do not grow over the winter months, but they should start producing new leaves and increasing the size of existing leaves early in the spring.
Why Aren’t My Snake Plants Growing?
Let’s take a look at the most common reasons why snake plants aren’t growing to discuss what you can do to resolve it.
Insufficient Lighting
Despite being sold as “low-light” plants, snake plants always perform better in bright, indirect light. As long as they are not overwatered, snake plants can live for a long time in low light conditions.
Without adequate light, your snake plant will stubbornly refuse to grow – there is simply not enough light energy for it to produce growth.
Indoors, snake plants do best in bright indirect light. However, they can tolerate a few hours of direct sunlight, especially in the early morning and late afternoon. When you hold your hand up in front of a wall or floor near your snake plants, you can determine whether it gets enough light. It is obvious that the available light is too low if your hand doesn’t cast a good shadow against the surface.
You can also use your phone’s light sensor to check how much light your plant is receiving. To get a quick reading, you can use various free light meter apps available on Apple and Android stores. Indirect light is about 10,000–20,000 lux (1,000–2,000 foot-candles).
The bright colors on these snake plants will likely surprise you. Checking this will help you move it to a more suitable location, and within a few weeks, you’re supposed to see new growth on it.
Underwatering
Snake plants are tolerant of drought, but their growth rate will drastically slow down if they do not receive enough water. Once the soil is almost completely dry, I usually water my snake plants, but you won’t see any signs of distress from a snake plant until a few weeks or months after the soil has dried.
Underwatering is characterized by dry soil, curling leaves, brown leaf tips, and lack of growth.
Check the soil every few days by digging a finger into it to test for dampness, so you can water your plants when they need it. Also, I like to lift the pot to check the weight, since dry soil is lighter than wet soil, so you get a sense of how light it should be before it needs watering.
Overwatering
Overwatering, on the other hand, can also stop your snake plants from growing. A lack of water results in root rot that stops the plant from growing and often kills it. You should always water your snake plants with caution, since underwatering is less harmful than overwatering.
In order to save your plant, act quickly if the leaves are drooping and turning yellow. For your plant to be fixed, you’ll need to follow these steps.
- Snake plants should be removed from their pots gently.
- Check the roots for signs of root rot. Rotten roots will appear brown or black, mushy, fragile, and smelly.
- Pruning shears or sterile pruners should be used to remove affected roots following a root rot diagnosis.
- The remaining soil must be washed off with water after most of the soil has been removed from around the remaining roots. Since rot-causing pathogens are likely to remain in the soil, this is crucial.
- The healthy roots can be treated with a diluted hydrogen peroxide solution (Optional, but it helps)
- You need to repot your snake plants in fresh, appropriate soil in a pot with plenty of drainage holes.
- Keep the temperature, humidity, water, and light moderate. If you want your snake plants to thrive, avoid extremes.
- The snake plants will likely take several months to develop new, healthy roots, but it will eventually begin to grow and recover fully.
Getting Rootbound
Snake plants will only produce new growth if they have sufficient, healthy roots to support it. Your plant may be unable to produce new growth if it has filled the pot with roots.
Despite snake plants’ propensity to grow dense foliage, if they become rootbound there is simply no room for new leaves to develop.
Repotting a rootbound snake plant is not necessary, and many people prefer to keep them rootbound to limit their growth and keep them at the desired size. It is for this reason that I have not yet repotted my plant.
Repot your snake plants into a larger pot than its current container if you would like to encourage new growth. It can be tempting to put your plant in a much larger pot, but this can increase the risk of overwatering it. It will take longer for the soil in the pot to dry out since there’s so much more soil in it, and it will take longer for roots to penetrate.
Acclimation
When you first bring plants home, they need some time to adjust. Normally, snake plants are grown in optimal conditions by the grower, and the conditions in your home are not likely to be as good.
It is likely that your snake plants will stop growing for a month or two initially until it adapts to the new conditions.
As long as you provide your plant with the basic care it needs, just wait a while, and it should begin to grow again before too long.
Fertilizer Deficiency
Snake plants do not require heavy feeding, but if they are growing slowly, a fertilizer can help to stimulate their growth.
The presence of a snake plant in the same pot for a long period of time can exhaust the soil of nutrients, thereby causing the leaves to appear to not be growing.
Because snake plants are succulents, it is important to give them a special fertilizer, as ordinary house plant fertilizers may have nutrients in a concentration that is too high for the snake plants, leading to drooped leaves.
Apply a succulent and cactus fertilizer (available online) and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
Fertilize during the growing season (spring and summer), and do not fertilize in winter as plants often go dormant as a result of cool temperatures and less sunlight.
Diseases and Pests
A plant’s growth can be halted by both pests and diseases. In most cases, Snake Plant diseases are related to excessive watering, so it is critical to take care of them correctly to prevent ailments.
It is apparent that mealybugs and scale are particularly fond of Snake Plants, resulting in significant damage to them. Whenever you notice a pest on your snake plant, make sure to treat it promptly.
Make sure you inspect the leaves carefully on both sides, starting from where they come from the soil all the way down. Learn how to identify, treat, and prevent houseplant pests by reading this article.
Here are some steps you can take if you detect pests;
- If you have other houseplants, do not mix your plant with them.
- Remove as many of the pests as you can by wiping them off with a cloth or spraying them with water from a shower head or hose.
- Apply a treatment such as diluted hydrogen peroxide, neem oil, or isopropyl alcohol to the plant thoroughly.
- For 3-4 weeks, you will need to repeat the treatment every 5-7 days until you are certain that all insects have been accounted for.
- Once you are sure that your plant has been properly treated, you can move it back to its normal spot.
Normally, your Snake Plant will not grow if you have a significant pest infestation, and you may have to treat the plant for a few months before it grows again. If you are patient, you are likely to be rewarded.
What Can I Do to Make My Snake Plants Grow Faster?
Optimizing the growth conditions for your snake plant and avoiding sources of stress will help the plant grow quickly. The best ways to ensure fast growth are to ensure they receive plenty of light, adequate water but not excessive bathing, and some fertilizer 2-3 times each year.
In winter, snake plants stop growing since light levels will not be sufficient to encourage new growth.
It’s possible, however, to use a grow light year-round in order to boost light levels for your Snake Plant.
During the winter, I usually use a number of grow lights to keep my houseplants from deteriorating, as well as to stimulate new growth.
What’s the Reason My Snake Plant Isn’t Growing Straight Up?
The most common reason for the snake plant not to grow straight up is that the light comes from the side, and it grows toward the light. Over time, the leaves will curve towards the light source. Rotate your plants every time you water them to keep their leaves as straight as possible.
Various other issues can cause the leaves to curve or droop, including pests, diseases, and watering problems. Make sure to examine your plant carefully, and have a think about the conditions your plant has been growing in.