A House Full of Spiders

Kim Bagby, Southside Master Gardener, Southern Piedmont Master Naturalist Spider plants! What’s not to love? Gracefully arching striped leaves of bright white and green, lovely in hanging baskets, easy to grow and tolerant of bad behavior from their owners—helpful traits in a houseplant, unless you were born without a green thumb and can kill a plant by looking at it hard. Spider plants are actually in the same family as asparagus. Their Latin name is Chlorophytum comosum and they come in three basic varieties, two with green and white stripes and the one shown here with solid green leaves. They’re evergreen perennials originally from tropical and Southern Africa. They’re not cold-tolerant here in Zone 7, though they seem to enjoy spending the summer outdoors. Bring them in for the winter as you would any other houseplant. I typically clean mine off and spray for insects before they come inside. Temperature-wise, I usually bring my plants in when the lows are consistently in the 50s, though other people have their own preferences. Spider plants prefer loamy soil, which provides good drainage but also moisture retention and some air circulation. People differ as to how much light they need but start with bright indirect light and go from there. They also like humidity and can do well in bathrooms or with regular misting. They’re sensitive to fluoride and chlorine in water, so if you get leaf tip browning, consider using rainwater. Inconsistent watering doesn’t seem to bother them too much, but don’t overwater them. They like moist but not really wet soil. Go easy on the fertilizer and only fertilize in the spring and summer. Propagating spider plants is one of the fun things about them. When your spider’s healthy and happy, and maybe a little rootbound, it’ll send some long, thin stems out with widely spaced tiny leaves and exquisite white flowers. At the end of the stem is where the baby spider plants grow. On their undersides you can see some brown nubs: these are the beginnings of their roots. If you ask ten people what to do next, you’ll probably get ten different answers! Some people just leave the baby plants where they are, adding to the visual interest of the plant. In the wild, as these babies grow, their weight will eventually cause the stem they’re on to bow down low enough for them to touch the ground, and they’ll eventually develop their own roots. You can try to duplicate this with your houseplants by setting small pots near the parent plant and grounding the juvenile plantlets in them. You can also cut them free of the parent and just plant them in their own pots, though without a good root system, yet it’ll take them longer to establish. Water these small plants more than you would the mature plants to help them establish their roots, but again, don’t overwater. At the other end of the scale is simply rooting them in water. Some experts say they’ll have stronger root systems if you only leave them in the water a few days before planting them in pots, but your mileage may vary. I had one that I got frustrated with because it kept trying to die no matter how I potted it, and I finally gave up and just left it in water for the best part of a year. I eventually potted it this spring and set it outside. I had to support it for the season because the leafy above-ground plant had gotten so big in the water it was top-heavy on the roots, which were decently developed considering my neglect. It took off! It even got happy enough that it started making babies. It did better with hands-off parenting, I suppose. It got partial sun for part of the day and mostly subsisted on rain, though I did water it with water from the rain barrel when the stuff from the sky was scarce. It tolerated this summer’s hot, hot days pretty well, too. Spider plants really are nice houseplants to have. They’re graceful and airy but sturdy enough to tolerate—even thrive on—a little benign neglect. Hit up a friend or neighbor for a spider baby and have fun with it! Many thanks to our Virginia Cooperative Extension Southside Master Gardeners and Virginia Master Naturalist Southern Piedmont Chapter, and to all the people who give their time to and through these groups to educate us! The Virginia Cooperative Extension Halifax Extension Office is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday. If you have gardening questions, you can continue to reach an extension master gardener or extension staff member by sending an email to wmccaleb@vt.edu or calling the Halifax Extension Master Gardener Help Desk at 434-830-3383. Be sure to give us your first and last name, telephone number and the nature of the call. The help desk phone is routinely checked Monday-Friday. Someone will get back to you, although it may be from a different telephone number.