Spider plants are one of the best to have in your home. You can grow them in soil pots, hanging baskets with soil, and other areas. Their ribbon-like leaves and foliage brighten any room.
One of the great things that attract many home growers is taking some of the spiderettes from the mother plant to propagate new plants in soil to grow or give to family or friends.
Once you continue through this guide, you can see how easy it is to keep and care for spider plants and how propagating can be fun as well as worthwhile.
Carry on to find out how to rapidly propagate spider plants in the soil.
When Can You Plant Baby Spider Plants?
Propagating spider plants is very easy, and you have a few ways you can achieve this.
You have three main methods to propagate Chlorophytum comosum, also known as the “airplane plant.”
You have:
- rooting spider plant babies in a pot with soil
- Growing from seed
- Rooting in watering
- Rooting with mother in soil
While you can plant from seeds, you can discover that there is little reason for the number of spider plant babies there are. (Read How To Grow Lemon Tree From Seed)
What Are Spider Plant Babies?
Spider plant babies are off-shoots. We are also known as spiderettes or plantlets. You see, these grow in abundance from your main plant.
Such off-shoots tend to flower during the summer, and from there, the babies sprout from the spider plant flowers if not pollinated.
Once flowers are pollinated, they produce seeds rather than plantlets, which, when mature enough, these spider plantlets grow into new plants.
Growing Spider Plant Babies
Because it is so easy to grow a spider plant, you will find spider plant propagation is the most common method.
You can root them in well-draining potting soil while still attached to the mother plant. You can also cut them off to root them in water or propagate them in a propagation box.
Once you take spider plants from cuttings, they grow from a few days to a couple of weeks. This does change depending on the propagation method. (Read When Can You Transplant Peonies)
Should I Cut the Babies Off My Spider Plant?
While spider plant propagation is hugely popular, there are times when you may need to remove any plantlets attached to the mother plant. In other instances, you can leave them attached to begin with.
The reason for doing so is your spider plant can grow to three feet in diameter and length. It is here an occasional pruning can help your mother plant thrive. (Read Can You Grow Rosemary From Cuttings)
You generally do this in the spring or also during the summer. You can keep the plants a desirable size, and they can put their energies into their new growth rather than a new spider plantlet.
Here you can find a few pruning tips:
- Prune foliage to the base of the plant.
- Use sharp pruners or scissors.
- Remove discolored, diseased, or dead foliage.
- To remove spiderettes, cut the long stem down to the base of the mother plant and baby.
- Any overgrown or root-bound plants and you may need to re-pot in addition to pruning (recommended every 1 or 2 years).
- You may see brown tips occasionally. You can discover these brown tips are from the type of water used. It can also be because of too much light and low humidity.
How Do You Root a Spider Plant in Water?
Like many houseplants that you can grow in water, you can do the same with a spider plant.
Taking cuttings or offsets to propagate spider plants is a common pastime. What makes it more accessible is these can be grown in just a glass of water.
Once rooting has become established, the new spider plant requires nutrients for growing to be fully grown.
Plain water can sustain a plantlet, yet; it won’t provide the right nutrients to grow healthily for very long. Essential nutrients can be found in fertilizer, although you risk root burn from salt build-up. (Learn How Long Do Poppies Take To Grow From Seed)
Growing a spider plant in water is one of the best ways of starting a new plant, yet it isn’t a sustainable method.
- Use demineralized water, or you can let any tap water sit in a light area for a day before placing your plantlet in the solution.
- Fill a glass or jar with this non-chlorinated water
- Sit the baby in the container with most of the leaves outside the container.
- Position the cutting in indirect light, and make sure it doesn’t get too hot.
- Leave here until new growth of roots.
- You can add a couple of drops of liquid fertilizer; you should change the water every couple of days.
How Do You Plant a Baby Spider Plant?
Once you decide to propagate your baby spider plant, you will see the best way is to keep the long connecting stem connected to the mother. It helps because you negate shock from potting your spiderettes when they are babies. (Read Planting Jack In The Pulpit)
When you grow spider plants this way, your babies’ new growth will be much stronger from the beginning.
One downside with this is that your spiderettes, when attached to their mother, may not root as often as they do when you remove them and put them in a pot of their own.
- Here, you can use regular potting soil.
- Place your new small pot close to the mother plant.
- Stick the small starter roots of the baby a little way into the soil. (you can use rooting hormone as well).
- You want to let the plantlets grow a few new roots before pot your babies.
- Keep the soil evenly moist after planting in their separate pots until the plant establishes itself.
- You may want to lightly mist it daily until it can get full-sized roots and take up more moisture on its own.
Read more: Best Gardening Work Table
