Sansevierias
Bulletproof plants from the Old World, Sansevierias are ideal for beginning gardeners and top-drawer designers alike
By Jenny Andrews
Photo by: Chelsea Stickel
Sansevierias are sleek and sophisticated, but they’re also the “comfort food” of plants, reminding many people of days spent on Grandma’s porch. The most-common version is Sansevieria trifasciata, with its familiar dark and light green stripes, here showing off why it’s commonly called snake plant.
Learn more about growing Sansevieria.
Photo by: Chelsea Stickel
Sansevierias make ideal container plants, and here the contrast between gold-edged ‘Futura Simplex’ and almost-black ‘Nelsoni’ makes for good patio companions. Though the thick rhizomes have been known to break pots, sturdy examples like the Low Tahoe Planters from Campania International should be up to the challenge.
Photo by: Chelsea Stickel
An unusual species with speckled foliage discovered in the Congo, Sansevieria masoniana, has extremely large leaves — 8 to 10 inches wide and up to 4 feet tall.
Photo by: Chelsea Stickel
Silvery ‘Moonshine’ reveals the adaptability of sansevierias to both in-ground and container culture.
Photo by: Jon Whittle
Though hardy outdoors to Zone 9, snake plants are familiar houseplants in much of the country, able to take low-light conditions and little water in stride. The narrow verticality of many sansevierias makes them good choices for trough-shaped pots, here ‘Futura Simplex’ in a Venetian Rectangle from Gainey Ceramics.
Photo by: Jon Whittle
One of the hottest sansevierias on the market these days is S. cylindrica. Container from Target.
Photo by: Jon Whittle
Recalling a time in midcentury, when sansevierias were the “it” plant of modernism, a Spindel planter from Greenform holds ‘Silver Laurentii’ encircled by ‘Jade Dwarf Marginated’, flanked by bright-orange chairs from West Elm.
Photo by: Chelsea Stickel
Fort Lauderdale landscape designer Luis Llenza puts sansevierias through their paces, using them for a wide range of landscape needs, from groundcovers to edging to focal points. Low-growing ‘Futura Simplex’ around a contemporary fountain, backed by tall S. trifasciata.
Photo by: Chelsea Stickel
Snake plants are also ideal textural foils for other plants, like the dramatic swords of ‘Laurentii Compacta’ (sometimes called ‘Black Gold Extreme’) woven among feathery muhly grass.
Photo by: Chelsea Stickel
A heavily white-striped cultivar called ‘Bantel’s Sensation’.
