Are you a forgetful plant owner? Let’s say you take some of your plants indoors and often forget about them. Or are you tired of taking your plants in and out from your house because you are afraid they might die with the absence of sunlight? Worry not because I am going to share with you one species of indoor plant that is suitable for this kind of problem and how you can help them stay alive indoors.
Snake Plants Can Survive A Few Weeks With No Sunlight?
Snake plants can survive for a few weeks without sunlight. These hard, sharp-pointed-leaf and sword-like plants can maintain their fresh and tough look for quite a long time. They prefer indirect exposure to sunlight because exposing them under the scourging heat of the summer sun can lead them to their deathbeds, but they can adjust to high heat too.
Wait… sounds confusing? I know, but putting them directly under the sun all day everyday and putting them in a place where high temperatures exist can be two different things.
Our indoor environment is usually shady and has less sunlight penetration. While this type of condition is not a problem to snake plants, be sure not to neglect them forever.
Snake Plants Are One of the Best Indoor Plants
Their ability to withstand the absence of sunlight for a long time is one of the several things that make them the best plant to have indoors. You do not need to worry everyday whether they are taken out or not, nor worry if you watered them or not.
Yes, aside from the fact that snake plants can maintain their vibrant look, they can survive without water for weeks as well.
Another reason and maybe the most beneficial one is their ability to purify the air from inside of our apartment, be it the living room or the bedroom. The air indoors is five times more polluted than the air outside, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s study.
A different study conducted by NASA in 1989 about the purifying abilities of indoor plants shows that the presence of these plants can clean the air inside your home by 90% in 24 hours. They can prevent cancer too, no joke!
Their awesome air-purifying ability can eliminate carcinogenic agents floating in the air. These carcinogens are causing cancer so having snake plants in your home is health wise.
You Can Use Artificial Lights as a Substitute for Sunlight.
There are several sources of artificial lights available at home, such as fluorescent, incandescent and LED or light-emitting diodes that can be used as a substitute for sunlight. Giving these plants any artificial lighting is not enough.
First, we need to have a deeper understanding of lights in order to give our plants the best one and not to harm them.
Light is a spectrum of different colors so we need to know whether these light colors affect the growth and development of the plants. If so, what colors in the light spectrum are good for them?
According to Science, there are three colors in the light spectrum that are good for the plants’ growth and development. These are green, red and blue. Among these, red and blue are the best source of energy for plants. The blue color in the light spectrum is responsible for plants’ food production. It helps plants grow fast and healthy.
On the other hand, the red color from the light spectrum is the key for the production of their fruits and flowers.
Now, we know that red and blue colors in the light spectrum are the most useful colors for our indoor plants. Next, we will talk about the best source of these light colors using the artificial lights found at home.
There are several artificial light sources that can be found at home, and these include fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs and light-emitting diodes, also known as LED. Diodes are semiconductors with two terminals but only allow the flow of electric current to one side.
LEDs usually come in different colors. If we compare these lights, fluorescent light is a better source of blue and red colors from the light spectrum, compared to incandescent light bulbs. Fluorescent light bulbs emit a balance of both blue and red lights while incandescent light bulbs mainly emit red light colors.
How about LED lights? Well, the beautiful thing about LED lights is they are customizable. You can specifically customize blue or red or both with LED lights to give to your snake plants living inside your house.
How to Care for your Snake Plants Indoors
Taking care for your snake plants is not that hard at all. After all, they are known as tough to kill plants. They grow best when you just leave them there in the corner, no strings attached.
In fact, they will reward you for that by being just as evergreen as they are. When you plant them, the basic thing you need to remember is to plant them in a well-draining pot with a well-draining soil.
As we have mentioned earlier, they can live without sunlight for weeks, but make sure you do not deprive them of it when the time comes. Do not water them too much if you let them sit indoors.
The absence of sunlight will slow down their food production; this means less absorption of water. If you water them too much, you are drowning them. When winter comes, it is best to just leave them alone by giving them water once in a while. Watering them less does not just end there.
One common mistake we often do – whether we admit it or not, we pour water to the center of our snake plants where the new leaves are sprouting. It is a big no-no. This will cause rotting – don’t be a troublemaker plant momma.
Put them in a place where your pets or little kids cannot reach them. The reason for this is not just to keep your plants from damage, but these plants contain toxic elements which can cause poisoning when their leaves are eaten. They are not very poisonous but these plants can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
As a summary, snake plants can thrive in an environment with no sunlight – for a few weeks. This is a good plant characteristic for someone who often forgets about their plants because aside from that, they do not need to be watered very often.
They are one of the best indoor plants to have because aside from their ability to live being neglected for a long time, they are beneficial to human health by purifying the air we breathe.
They consider artificial lights as a substitute for sunlight while they grow in one of the corners of your house. They are very low maintenance plants to have. Their toughness as a plant is super awesome because they cannot wither easily.
Even superheroes have their weaknesses…so do the snake plants, so it is necessary to know the basic yet important knowledge to help them start out as a plant such as planting them in soil with well-drainage and observing the proper way of watering them.