Why Does My Snake Plant Have Holes?

Overwatering is the primary cause of holes in the Snake plant.

When overwatered, the excess moisture leads to holes in the leaves, root rot, and mushy leaves within 3-5 days. To resolve this problem, remove the affected leaves and adjust the watering routine immediately.

If there are small, round holes in the leaves, it might be due to pests like spider mites or mealybugs. Moreover, snails and slugs can also cause holes in your Snake plant.

In this guide, I’ve shared more details on the reasons and solutions for this issue with the Snake plant. So, let’s dive in and explore further!

Why Does My Snake Plant Have Holes?

There are two main reasons why you might see holes in the leaves of this plant.

The first reason is overwatering.

When you overwater the plant, the leaves may develop brown spots on its surface.

Some of these spots and patches turn into holes due to severe damage.

The other reason is snails.

Snails are a known pest in the indoor gardening world.

These insects can enter the pot if you keep it near a window or balcony.

These locations are ideal for such insects to find a host plant in the garden.

When they get to the Snake plant, they can surely cause a few holes in the leaves.

They won’t eat the entire leaf, but you will see such damage on the plant.

Note: No matter what you do to fix this problem, you cannot reverse the process and get the leaves back in their previous shape.

It is permanent damage to the plant.

So, don’t search for any such magical tricks to fix this problem entirely.

The only thing you can do here is to prune the plant.

You can remove the damaged leaves, which should allow the plant to produce new leaves in the future.

How To Avoid Snails On Your Snake Plant

Here is a list of things you can do to avoid this problem in your Snake plant – 

1. Keep The Soil Dry

You will often find snails in the pot during the rainy season or when the soil is wet.

These conditions suit this insect well because they get moisture from the soil and food from the tender leaves of the plant.

When you keep the soil dry, it automatically creates scarcity in the environment.

Therefore, it proves to be a great solution against these pests.

However, it might not be very useful during the rainy season, as the soil takes longer to dry out completely.

In such a situation, you should keep the plant in a room with decent ventilation.

This will help evaporate the excess moisture from the soil.

With these solutions, the snails will not roam around the plant for long.

2. Avoid Multiple Snake Plants In One Pot

Many of us like to have multiple plants in one pot, but it generally attracts many problems in indoor plants.

The common problem with such a setup is the congestion in the pot.

The congestion leads to excess moisture and humidity around the plants.

This is why you will see different insects like snails getting attracted to the plant.

So, try to avoid placing too many plants in the same pot.

3. Keep Your Snake Plant In Sunlight

The Snake plant can thrive in natural light, though you shouldn’t provide direct sunlight to this plant for long hours.

Otherwise, it may cause sunburn leaves issues in the plant.

Anyway, if you want to keep the snails away from your plant, you should provide decent sunlight to it.

When the natural light falls on the planter, it helps maintain the moisture level in the soil.

As mentioned in the first point, moisture is one of the biggest factors that play a role in attracting bugs and insects to plants.

So, you can use natural light as a tool to control these pests in your plant.

As for the duration, you can keep the plant in sunlight for at least a couple of hours during the day.

This should be more than enough to evaporate surface moisture from the soil.

4. Pick And Remove The Snails From The Pot

Now, if you want to deal with this problem, you will have to get your hands dirty.

I know it sounds like a tedious task, but there is no better way to fix the snail problem in your pot.

If you find it difficult, you can also use gloves to protect your hands.

It should make the job a lot easier.

So, go ahead and put your gardening gloves on.

Then, start picking the snails from the surface of the soil.

When you remove most of the visible snails from the soil, you can use some of the following solutions to eliminate them.

5. Use Vinegar Spray

Yes, the snails don’t like vinegar!

As you know, vinegar has a strong smell that can really make things difficult for the snails to be in the pot for a long.

The vinegar spray also works best against many of the pest issues on the plant.

So, you should consider using it once in a while if you see bugs in your indoor plant.

Regarding the spray, you can prepare a dilute solution of vinegar, insecticidal soap, and water.

Put this solution in your garden sprayer and spray it lightly on the affected parts.

Note: The snails won’t disappear with the first instance of spraying.

You will have to spray the same solution a couple of times more.

6. Spread Salt Around The Edges Of The Pot

Salt is another ingredient that can help deter the snails from entering the Snake plant pot.

You can spread it around the edges of the pot so that it can create a barrier for them while entering the soil.

Important: You shouldn’t add salt to the soil, as the plant will not thrive in a salty environment.

7. Use Eggshells To Deter The Snails

Eggshells are another interesting kitchen ingredient that helps you solve this problem.

When you put them in the soil, their sharp edges make it very difficult for the snails to move around the surface.

Since snails are soft-bodied organisms, they can’t tolerate such surfaces.

Ultimately, they just leave the plant and move on to some other place.

The other benefit of using eggshells is they are rich in calcium.

So, you don’t have to use any calcium-rich soil or fertilizer for the plant.

The eggshells will disintegrate in the soil over the period, and the roots will get these nutrients whenever required.

Besides, there are a few other things that might help resolve the snail problem in your garden.

But the ones I have mentioned above are just good enough to remove snails from the soil.

And of course, if you use these methods, you will not have any holes in your Snake plant. 

So, do try them out.

In the next section, you will find some FAQs related to the topic.

Check them out if you have any similar questions in your mind.

FAQs