PILF

Snake Plant

$25
Grade ALight 1
6″ pot · Tax included · No account

A dark corner is genuinely fine. A hallway, a bathroom, a desk with no window. Water once a month — less in winter — and otherwise leave it alone.

A dark corner is genuinely fine.
Once a month. Less in winter.
A month alone is fine. It won’t notice you’ve gone.
Not for chewing. Keep it up high if something at home chews plants.
The most common way people kill this one

Overwatering, by a mile. More snake plants die of kindness than of neglect. Once a month is plenty; in winter, every six weeks. If you’re not sure whether it’s time, it isn’t.

How big it gets

Upright to two or three feet, very slowly. It’ll be roughly this size for a year.

What it doesn’t get along with

Cats and dogs: no. Chewing it can mean an upset stomach — nausea, vomiting. Rarely serious, but keep it where nothing chews.

Direct sun. It’ll scorch in a window that gets the afternoon beam. Radiators and heating vents dry the air and the soil faster than you’d think — a foot or two away is enough.

A pot with no drainage hole, and anyone who waters on a schedule. Both drown it.

What it’s trying to tell you
Mushy base, or a leaf folding over at the soilToo much water. Stop entirely and let it dry for weeks. Cut off anything soft.
Leaves wrinkling or curling inwardThirsty at last. Water it once, properly.
Nothing happening for monthsNormal. It grows in bursts, mostly in summer.

Every symptom, every plant, on one page.

Where it came from

Some are divided from a snake plant in Wicker Park. Some come from a Chicago grower and spend two weeks in quarantine in Wicker Park before they go anywhere. The tag on the pot says which.

Grown in Wicker Park, Chicago. Most shelves are a few blocks from where it was potted.

If you’ve killed a C, start here

A C wants a rhythm — a fern, a calathea, a fiddle leaf fig. Losing one says nothing about you. This one is a Grade A: it forgives a month of nothing.

The list for people who’ve killed a C. · How the grades work.

Something else? hello@pilf.me. Replies come from a person, usually the same day.