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With so many types of Snake Plants out there, the Whale Fin Snake Plant, or Sansevieria Masoniana, is definitely the king with it’s gigantic leaves! Although not as easy to come by as other Sansevierias, it makes for a very special plant in your houseplant collection.
Sometimes called Mason’s Congo Sansevieria, this snake plant is just as easy to care for as your others. Let’s take a look at a few care and propagation tips, and I’ll also show you my journey so far with this plant!
One of the perks of being active in the houseplant community on Instagram is forging friendships from other houseplant crazies such as myself and you can ship each other plants!
One of my plant friends in Florida found a Sansevieria masoniana and shipped it right up to me in Ohio! Here is what my plant looked like when it arrived:
Soon after I received it, I potted it up in a terra cotta pot, gave it a good watering, and placed it in a good growing location. I’ll go into my care tips for Sansevieria shortly.
Most of the time when these plants are offered for sale, they are usually only a single leaf, or maybe two like mine above.
Whale Fin Sansevieria Care
Standard snake plant care applies to this plant! Let me dispel a very common myth about Sansevieria though.
Although these are labeled as low light plants, you will not achieve best results if you shove this plant in a dark corner of your home.
Nor does it mean that they NEED low light. It just means that they will TOLERATE low light! Over time, your plant will slowly decline if your plant is not placed in good light.
The fact is, Sansevieria can grow in a good amount of direct sunshine. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to Africa and have seen Sansevieria growing in semi-shaded areas under trees and some even in full sun.
Pretty much the opposite of “low light!”
Whale Fin Sansevieria is sometimes labeled with the cultivar ‘Mason Congo’ since it was initially collected in the Congo in Africa.
LIGHT
By all means, whatever you do, at a minimum you should make sure that your plant is as close to a window as possible. These plants would benefit from some direct sun indoors.
Eastern and Western exposure windows are great for these plants. I’m not discounting North windows though, especially if they are larger and unobstructed. A bit of direct sun is preferred though.
South windows, which are the brightest exposure, will also work! If you live in areas with very strong sun, you may want to filter the direct sun a bit. Since I live in Ohio, I don’t have much to worry about…
These are versatile plants indoors, but whatever you do, place them right in front of a window for best growth and results.
Just keep in mind that brighter light means that your potting mix will dry out more quickly. And that brings us to…
WATERING
Always water thoroughly. Yes, these plants need to dry out in between watering, but it is always good practice to water your plants throughly for a healthy root system.
This goes for ANY plant!
Be sure to throughly soak the soil around the whole pot until water seeps through the drainage hole. Discard the excess water and never allow your whale fin to sit in water because this will invite root rot.
This is easily done if you take your plant to your sink to water.
If you water your plant in place and have your plant growing in a pot with drainage holes, but it is slipped into a decorative cache pot, take special care. Be sure that you check to make sure that excess water hasn’t collected at the bottom of the cache pot.
If it has, discard the excess water.
After watering, allow your soil to dry out completely, or close to completely, and then repeat the watering process. Although it can tolerate quite a bit of neglect and extended dry periods between watering, try not to wait terribly long after the soil has dried out before watering again.
Your Whale Fin likes soil to grow in soil that dries out fairly quickly in between watering.
If you have your plant growing in good light, comfortable indoor temperatures, and use a well-drained potting mix, this should not be a problem!
I like to use my finger to check the soil moisture. You can also pick up your pot to feel if it has gotten substantially lighter. The good thing is that these plants are very tolerant of drought and won’t whine and whimper like some other plants.
Lastly on watering…I strongly advise against the usage of moisture meters. Check out my blog post on the 3 Big Dangers of Moisture Meters.
Another HUGE misconception is the topic of overwatering.
The next key aspect of growing this plant is having the proper soil mix.
SOIL MIX and POTS
Sansevieria masoniana likes a sharply draining soil mix. For all my Sansevierias, I use about 2 parts of a good succulent/cactus potting mix and add 1 part pumice.
If I don’t have pumice on hand, I will use perlite but I really prefer pumice for plants like Sansevieria that need sharp drainage and need to dry out quickly.
I’ve used both Hoffman Cactus and Succulent mix and Miracle-Gro Cactus, Palm and Citrus mix successfully. Use two parts of either of these and are easily available on Amazon.
To your two parts of potting mix, add one part of 1/4″ pumice. I love using Bonsai Jack’s 1/4″ Pumice.
This mixture will give you a beautifully drained potting mix for your Sansevieria.
As far as pots go, you can really use any type of pot as long as there is a drainage hole! I prefer terra cotta pots for Sansevieria because they dry out more quickly, and I also like the look of them.
If you’d like to read up more on terra cotta pots, I’ve written a great blog post on pros and cons of terra cotta pots that you may enjoy!
FERTILIZING
These plants are light feeders, but I still fertilize throughout the growing season with Schultz Cactus fertilizer.
You’ll want to use a lower nitrogen fertilizer like Schultz 2-7-7 Cactus Plus. And if you skip some applications throughout the growing season, your plant will forgive you.
This fertilizer is formulated to fertilize with every watering. Just follow the direction on the package.
And remember that fertilization is NOT a fix for poor culture! It should be used to supplement your plant’s growth. You should focus first on making sure you are providing the right light, watering, etc. first before thinking about fertilizing.
There is NO substitute for proper growing conditions!
PROPAGATION
A word of caution…these plants are SLOW growers! You will be waiting quite a while before you get any new growth!
My own plant took about a year and a half from the time I received it bare root to the time it finally sent out a new leaf! Needless to say, I was very excited when I saw it!
There are a 3 good ways that you can propagate this plant:
DIVISION
One way to propagate is by division at the roots. This will be the fastest method by FAR! If your pot has more than one leaf, you can use this method.
Take a look at this video from my Instagram page (@ohiotropics) where I reposted a video from a great houseplant friend that I follow (@idrinkandigrowthings):
WATER PROPAGATION
Another way you can propagate is by water propagating a leaf cutting. Take a look at one way that this can be done below!
The Whale Fin leaf cutting was cleverly propped up in a glass of water with a chopstick, so that the cutting has room to grow roots!
For more details, check out my step-by-step blog post on How to Propagate Snake Plant in Water. I’ll take you throughout the whole process so you can have success!
SOIL PROPAGATION
The last way you can propagate Whale Fin is by soil propagation. You can simply cut leaf segments and root them in soil.
Instead of rehashing all the steps in this post, check out my blog post on Snake Plant Propagation By Leaf Cuttings in soil.
That’s all folks! Do you have a Whale Fin, or Sansevieria masoniana, in your collection?
Please do me a favor and share this post to social media because it will help me spread the Ohio Tropics houseplant care tips to the masses! Also, check out my shop on Amazon for all your houseplant care needs:
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