Snake Plant

There are no stems on the snake plant, just tough, thick, upright leaves. Because there are no branches, its slender profile makes it an ideal floor plant for small spaces. There are also dwarf varieties that form small rosettes of leaves. The most common foliage showcases shades of green with silver-gray horizontal streaks. Some variegated varieties have cream- or gold-colored edges.

This plant is extremely drought-tolerant, but its Achilles' heel is too much water. Snake plant needs well-drained potting mix that doesn't hold a lot of water. Ideally, snake plant likes to be in bright but indirect sunlight. However, you can park it in a dark corner and it'll be just fine. In less light, the color in some Sansevieria varieties can become washed out, and taller types can become leggy and floppy, but generally this isn't usually much of a problem.

Under the right conditions, a snake plant will bloom. While not overly showy, flowers are borne in large clusters, generally white with a greenish tinge. The small, tubular flowers emit a sweet floral fragrance that can fill a room, especially at night. But don't plan on a snake plant blooming with any regularity; many bloom just once every several years, not following any schedule.

It is easy to propagate a snake plant. You can propagate by leaf cuttings: cut a 3- to 4-inch section of the leaf and stick it in some moist potting soil. Keep this evenly moist but not wet, and in several weeks to a month, small plantlets will begin to grow from the base of the cutting. These can be separated into individual plants or left as a clump. Most varieties of snake plant with variegated leaves are actually a chimera, a plant mutation that causes the variegated foliage. Chimeras can't be propagated via leaf cuttings as with normal snake plants because the new plants will lose their coloring, turning into all-green versions. The only way to propagate variegated chimeras is by division.