So your Sansevieria has grown quite tall but seems to be bending over? Here are tips to get your snake plant to grow straight.
Whether you’ve just moved to a new apartment or made space in your collection for more plants, your snake plant might be taking the hit. Thus, you see the beautiful, tall leaves looking limp and leaning over. So, here are some of the best tips to get your snake plant to grow straight.
Tips to Get Your Snake Plant to Grow Straight
1. Let There Be Light!
First things first—if you’re new to the succulent world, you’ve likely heard of etiolation. Snake plants can tolerate low light for a while, but they won’t thrive or grow properly. If yours is stretching out or leaning toward the nearest window, it’s waving a big leafy red flag.
That’s your plant’s way of saying, “Move me to the light!” Ideally, place it near a bright spot—like a south or west-facing window—where it can soak up 6–8 hours of bright, indirect sunlight.
2. Rotate the Pot Weekly
So you listened to the previous tip and put your snake plant near the south-facing window. Yet, your snake plant seems to be lopsided. Well, you have kept the plant completely stationary; this is not surprising. In fact, your snake plant is still stretched, especially on one side; you might be forgetting something important.
Rotate the snake plant pot once a week so all sides of the plant have a chance to get ample sunlight and grow taller and straighter.
3. Add Support Stakes or Trellises
If your lighting is perfect and you also rotate the plant pot once a week, then your plant might need some extra support—literally. Basically, you have to either get some support stakes and bind the snake plant leaves to hold them upright using plant ties. You could also get a trellis to keep the plant from falling over the sides.
In case these are a little too much trouble for you, just prop your snake plant against a wall for some temporary support. Of course, you have to get a more permanent solution later.
4. Choose a Pot with a Wider Base
Here’s a root cause you might not expect—your pot. If your pot is too deep or narrow, the plant can become top-heavy and tip over easily.
Snake plants don’t have large root systems, so they do better in shallow terracotta pots that wick away extra moisture. Choose a pot just 1–2 inches wider than the plant’s rootball.
Pro tip: Make sure there’s only about half an inch of space between the rootball and the edge of the pot all around. This helps keep the plant stable.
5. Keep Watering in Check
One of the quickest ways to send your snake plant into a slump—literally—is overwatering.
Whether you have been giving your snake plant too much love with frequent watering or the pot does not have enough drainage holes, you will not just see limp leaves, but also discolored leaves.
The best way to know when to water is to do the finger test to see if the soil is actually dry and then pick up the watering can.
6. Go with the Good Quality Soil Mixes
You may not know this right away, but the reason for your snake plant leaves toppling over may well be lying in the soil! If you use a soil mix that’s too heavy, it will retain excess water, contributing to water pooling around the roots!
Besides limp leaves, you might also see brown, mushy roots and a bad odor coming from them if you try taking the plant out of the pot. This is why it is important to select a loose, airy succulent soil mix from the get-go.
So these were all the foolproof methods to help your snake plant grow nice and straight (and even look tall!). Try these out and tell us how your snake plant fares in the comments below!
