Sooooooooo, I finished the week of Neem and finally it was time to root around Caesar, removing any dead leaves. Unfortunately, the problem had spread significantly in that one week. All but the center leaf of the ground zero group had turn brown. And the browning had started to spread to the outer leaves of the other rosettes (new term: an arrangement of leaves growing in a radial pattern from the base of a plant).

Instead of digging out one section for removal, I ended up tearing apart the entire soil conglomerate. What I found was both horrifying and edifying.

First, being the first time I’ve exhumed a larger snake plant, I realized that snake plants have rhizomes. Which explains why they are considered hardy plants. Rhizomes are like roots on steroids. They are phenomenally effective at storing nutrients for plant growth and rerouting these energies to other growth spots should one area suffer disaster.

And yet they are not invincible. I seem to have drowned mine, as the rhizomes were depressingly mushy to the touch. They were primarily white to light orange-brown, which seems to be a healthy colour, but it might’ve just been a matter of time before the rhizomes turned dark brown or black – a sign of root rot.

Using my sanitized scissors, I cut away as much of the squishy sections as I could stomach. The end result being almost all the rhizome gone and the individual snake plant rosettes being physically separated from each other, which breaks my sensitive heart.

I did my best to save the remaining rosettes by:

• Making the cuts with minimal angle, so the ‘open wounds’ were as small as possible.
• Coating the cuts with cinnamon to help ward off infection.
• Introducing new soil to avoid any pestilence that may lurk in the old dirt.
• Using cacti and succulent potting mix, for optimal drainage.
• Sanitizing the pots, then coating them in cinnamon, to further prevent disease from taking hold.
• Matching the root balls to the pot size, aiming for pots only 1 inch diameter larger than the plant base, since snake plants prefer crowding, which prevents the soil from retaining too much moisture.

In the end, I acquired three Little Caesars and a heavy dose of desperation for their survival.

Of interest, I note that the base of the newly repotted plants are pale white, which I assume were the sections previously covered by the now-removed outer leaves. I wonder if these spots will remain as white as roots, or if the sun exposure will induce a greener colour.

I also clipped the tips of three discarded leaves, in the hopes that maybe they will root. I’m not terribly optimistic of their propagation, having come from dying leaves and two of the three being removed near the top rather than the base of the leaf. Only time will tell. Two months of time.

Final note: the graham cracker smell that I noticed last week seemed especially strong in the leaves of the ground zero rosette. Which makes me wonder if it wasn’t the moistened cinnamon, but rather the scent of decay. And yet every result I’ve found for root rot or snake plant death indicates a foul odor, not something sweet and yummy. The mystery endures.