Live Plants for Western Hognose

I'd like to add some live plants to my Western Hognose's naturalistic viv. Right now, I've got a combination of potting soil and excavator clay as substrate, a big flat black rock for basking, and one of those hides-with-magnetic-covering things. The little guy is still hiding - a little traumatized from the recent renovation - but other than that, he's doing ok.

But anyway - plants. What kind of plants are both safe for my hognose and won't die if they're planted in a few inches of soil in a tank?

Thanks in advance.

Hognose snakes are burrowers, so they don't need anything to bask, they don't need UVB. They will spend most of their time hiding. An aspen substrate would be better so that your snake could burrow in it.

Dracaenas, snake plant (Sansevieria), pothos vine, and spider plant are all completely safe for snake vivs. The pothos and spider plant are especially hardy. There are other options, as well, but these are probably the easiest to find.

Since hognose do burrow quite a lot, I'd be worried about him uprooting and killing the plants with his burrowing around. Two solutions might be to keep the plants in separate pots buried into the substrate, or to move him into a different enclosure for a few weeks to give the plants a chance to establish some kind of root system before he starts digging into them.

As far as the substrate, I don't see any problem using a dirt based substrate for a hognose (it's just as burrow-friendly as a finely shredded Aspen), however I'm a little concerned about the excavator clay. How is the consistency of the dirt, now that it's been in use for a couple months (yeah, this response is super late, I know, lol!)? If it's really thick and heavy (traits of an overly clay-heavy substrate), I'd not only be worried about his ability to burrow sufficiently, but also how it would effect any plants planted directly in the substrate.

If this particular mix is working well for the hognose, great... But keep the plants in separate pots. If the hognose is having trouble burrowing, you might look into alternative dirt mixes. For my rat snake's living vivarium, I did straight organic potting soil with some perlite added to help with drainage. When I start working on her 3 ft living vivarium, I'll be using a mix of eco earth and organic potting soil, with perlite and probably some sand and gravel added to the mix. Don't forget to put a drainage layer at the bottom--a half inch layer of medium to large-ish aquarium gravel works fine.

You can get some great ideas for how to do your substrate from "The Art of Keeping Snakes" by Phillipe de Vosjoli (necessary reading for anyone wanting to do a planted vivarium, IMHO) and from reptile and amphibian forums where such housing solutions are discussed regularly. There's a great thread on the Corn Snake Forum, seen here: http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53051. She offers her preferred soil "formula" on the third page. Frog forums (i.e. dart frog communities) also make great reading, since naturalistic vivariums are used so regularly in the husbandry of dart frogs and similar species. For other, more snake-specific online reading, a google search would be a good start. "Bio-active Substrate System" aka BSS or BAS is a term commonly used to refer to planted vivariums.

Good luck!

I've been doing a lot of research on western hognose and husbandry, because my husband really wants a hognose. I have read where people do use soil and I've read about naturalistic viv's. with as many snakes as I have, I prefer the more simple care with aspen, newspaper, or papertowels depending on the type of snake. But I do think a hognose would do best with something it can burrow in.