Re-Potting a House Plant

Re-potting your house plants

This is my snake plant, and I think he's ready for a bigger pot. Snake plants (Scientific name: Sansevieria trifasciata) are another very common houseplant, particularily good at cleaning the air, especially removing formaldehyde. I have had this plant for about a year and they grow up so fast ... it was more like watching paint dry.

One thing you can do to help your plant is to re-pot them, give them more space to grow their roots (especially if they are root bound) and flourish. Its a simple process, but some important things to know!

Firstly, we need to again fill the base of the pot with rocks or wood debris to assist in drainage. The reason for this is the roots of your plant can actually rot. If you are using an old pot as I did, be sure to clean it thoroughly to prevent disease and bacteria from killing your plant.

Add your soil or potting mix -- i was running low on potting mix so this is a combination of black earth (compost and/or manure) and potting mix.

Create a space for your plant by parting the soil, and take your plant by the base to remove it from it's original pot.

You will be able to evaluate the health of your plant here by the appearance of his roots. You can help speed up growth by lightly trimming some of the roots or loosening them by gently pulling them apart - a technique known as 'root pulling'. Root pulling is important for a plant that has been root-bound. Just like a fish in an aquarium they can only grow as big as the space they are in - with plants root-binding can eventually kill the plant if not make it a dwarf for the rest of its life cycle.

It actually looks like this snake plant is both a little root bound and wasn't getting good drainage or I was over watering - note the browning roots.

Now, I didn't bother with the above, trimming or root pulling as snake plants are quite resilient and the bigger pot should remedy this.

Plop him into the new pot.

Pack the soil around his base.

Water! This is a house plant so I can take him back inside at this point and put him by the window, but the weather is perfect here in Canada so I think I will leave him outside for a little bit to soak in those rays!