Q: I have a spider plant that is outside hanging from a tree. It is doing very nicely this summer and it has a few "babies." How should I plant these?
Thanks in advance,
Marta
A: Marta,
One of the best qualities of Spider plants is that propagating "spiderettes" from the runners (stolons) of the mother plants is easy. Fill a pot full of quality potting mix and select the plantlets you want to propagate. You can use one pot to start all the babies in (dividing them up later) or you can start each plantlet out in its own little pot. Use a hairpin or u-shaped wire to pin each plantlet down into the new soil while still attached to the mother plant. Water the babies while they develop roots in their new locations. Once new rooting has taken place, fresh growth will appear. Now it's safe to snip them off from the mother plant, place them in individual pots and continue to raise them to adulthood. This method also works with strawberry plants. FYI: Tests done by NASA determined Spider Pants are one of the best houseplants for filtering contaminants out of the air.
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I have a spider plant that is root bound. I want to transplant it into a hanging pot, however the plant has so many roots it will not set down in the basket. Can I cut the roots?
I have a spider plant I started from a baby off one of my sons plants. It is a year old this month and the plant is very healthy and getting big, yet there are no babies! What am i doing wrong? Been told there is not a female and male plant.
When I had spider plants, the babies would have babies. I would keep them on, and they would grow and grow. Also, to make the mother plant fuller, I would bend a paper clip to use as a stake to keep a baby on top of the soil of the mother plant. Keep it there until it roots and then clip the stem and remove the paper clip. You can also keep the babies attached and stake them with the bent paper clip in a new pot kept close to the mother. Then cut the stem when the baby is fully rooted. In order to do this, place the mother on a table and put all the new pots around so you can easily stake the babies.
I have a spider plant that's about 6 years old. When the babies start to get roots on them you can cut them from the plant and put them in potting soil and they'll grow. Or if your babies don't have roots yet you can root them in water. It takes a week or so for them to get roots and then you can plant them. I always start my baby spider plants in a small container like a laundry detergent lid. When it gets too big for the lid, transplant it into a bigger container like a small teracotta pot . I usually plant 3 babies into the pot together. Then when the roots start to grow out of the bottom of the pot you can put it in a hanging basket. This takes about a year but you'll have lots of spider plants when you're done. Good luck!
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