I watered thoroughly until it ran out of the bottom and tipped out the saucer. Twelve days later a chopstick pushed into the middle comes out visibly wet and cool. It is in a plastic nursery pot in standard bagged potting mix, about six feet from an east window, in a room we keep around 18C. No mushy leaves yet, but two are getting soft right at the base. What do I do first?
Also check there is actually a hole. I have lost count of how often this exact problem turns out to be a nursery pot sitting inside a decorative cover pot with an inch of water in the bottom that never gets tipped out.
Cheap moisture meters lie, your chopstick does not, so trust what you already found. Twelve days wet at depth in an eight inch pot is a pot and mix problem rather than a technique problem. Going up in pot size is the most common way people accidentally drown a succulent type plant.
If any leaves do come away soft, do not bin them. Cut above the mush, let the cut callous for a couple of days, then stand the piece in dry mix. Sansevieria leaf cuttings root readily and it is decent insurance while the parent recovers.
Worth knowing that variegated ones come back plain green from leaf cuttings. Divide the rhizome instead if the stripe matters to you.
@wind_down_wren · 8mo ago · 3 replies
Soft at the base is the bit I would act on today. Tip it out and look. Healthy sansevieria rhizomes are firm and pale, rotting ones are brown, squashy and sour smelling. Cut everything soft away with a clean blade, let the cuts dry for a day, and repot into fresh dry mix.
The reason you are here is four things stacking up: a plastic pot that does not breathe, a peat based mix that holds water for ages, a cool room, and modest light. A snake plant in those conditions might use a full watering in six weeks, not twelve days.
When you repot, go gritty. Roughly one third potting mix, one third bark, one third pumice or perlite, in a terracotta pot barely bigger than the rootball. Then water when the pot feels light and the leaves show the very first hint of a wrinkle, which for you in winter will probably be monthly.
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@flaxseed_fran · 8mo ago
The pot weight trick is underrated for anything that hates wet feet. Lift it right after a full watering, lift it again a week later, and you calibrate faster than any moisture meter will manage.
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@signup_bonus_sy · 8mo ago
Terracotta genuinely changes the timeline. I moved two snake plants out of plastic and the same room with the same habits stopped being a problem, because the pot is now doing part of the drying for me.
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