A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 Spider Plant

My son brought home a spider plant he grew in school, when he first brought it home it was full and beautiful. Now, it looks as if it is dying, there aren't as many leaves and it seems wilted. I know nothing about houseplants. Can someone give me some help. My son is austitic and is DEVASTED that his "friend" is dying.

Spider plants are durable and a great way to get involved with plants. A couple of questions, how is the water, light and heat sources? Mine tend to dry out easily this time of year, turn brown and lose leaves. Also, is the pot big enough? They will get root bound as they grow which inhibits growth too. Be sure to add a good fertilizer, fair amount of light, and I am sure the plant will rebound. They are great plants and survive even the worst of us. Good Luck

ECrazyFan8,

Hello there!!!

I'm not too big into house plants, just wanted to let you know that someone will be through to answer your questions,

I'll ask a few more for you to answer before they get here and that'll narrow it down a bit faster for you!!!

What type of container is it in???
(ie; plastic pot, paper cup, hanging, etc.)
Where in the house do you have it???
(ie; by window with direct sunlight, in a room with no windows, drafty area, too hot, by the heater, etc.)
What are you doing to it???
(ie; straight water from the tap (cholrine), fertilizers?? Too many??? Not enough????)

That should help the gardeners when they come through if you answer those questions...

Does your son garden alot (or you)
I'll bet he's absolutely fascinated with plants,
Have you tried other flowers/plants with him??

Marigolds' are one of the easiest to grow, and if you just throw the heads of the discarded dead flowers right on top of the soil they sprout right from there....
So many plants are magical to watch for children!

Weezie

By the way, Welcome to The Garden Helpers Forum,
There's really a great bunch of gardeners here, and they are really a nice group.. We love to answer gardening questions, so, don't hestitate to keep asking them!!!

MO., is Missouri??? I have relatives down there, something like Wildwood or somewhere's, they just moved there, close or not cigar?????

See, BFVISION slid in there when I was typing,
you're quick!!!
Weezie

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Well, it's a hanging plant and we had it hanging on the curtain rod off of our french doors (South Side Light - I believe) the heater vent was directly above the plant, so we moved it to (north side window) oops there too - heater vent directly below it. My son was watering it every couple of days then I told him to wait now the soil is probably "moist" Put fertizler spikes (2) in today. It's in a big round hanging pot (I would say maybe 8 inches in diameter) he began growing it around the first of December. This morning I moved it to the ledge above the kitchen sink (no window directly in front of it or heater vent) but the french door windows are opposite of the ledge. Yes, watering directly from tap and our water is pretty bad - we don't drink it!!!!

So what should I do with the plant now?

Thanks for all the advice. I tend to garden outdoors with stuff that is easy you know petunias, cucumbers, pansy flowers, stuff you can't really mess up.

I want to get into more gardening but don't know the first thing about it so I am excited to be here. Thanks for the advice on Marigolds - when exactly do you plant those and are those flowers that come back year after year - I have alot of questions about that too but will start small otherwise I will have a book of questions. As it is this post is quite long. Sorry!

Oh forgot to answer, Yes - MO is Missouri. I don't know where that town is you mentioned but I am fairly new to Missouri, moved here from the desert in California.

Not a problem on the long posts,
you are talking to the girl the forum hostesses coined the phrase on, "Got the Weezie's today" from.
We love the Weezie's, and Rellie~got the Rellie's, and Jiffy's gets the Jiffy's........
NOT A PROBLEM< we love gardening, talking gardening and meeting nice gardeners, no matter their statis in their growing abilities.
REMEMBER, WE WERE ALL THERE ONCE.....
AND when it's time you feel comfortable with something you've learned, you come and pass it on to the next generation of gardeners!!!!
Even like your son, you'll pass on the love of flowers to him too!!!

Marigolds, are so easy, I don't actually start mine from seed inside the house, so, other's would have to tell you the time table for that, if you live in say zone, 6 or 7, I'm guessing, I'm a 5... start them in say, April, I'm guessing at the time table as you don't want to start them too early indoors, as they tend to get spindley going for some light. When would you start to plant annuals in your area???
For mine, I wouldn't until May(ish), you may be earlier than me.
If you start them indoors, don't forget to harden them off, but putting them outside for just a bit, every day, first time, in the shade to get used to the out doors. Then little by little let them get used to a whold day out side, and a little morning sun, small steps, as not to burn them.
They are an annual, they will bloom your summer and then die off at snow time.
Save the flower heads, and just throw them on top of the dirt again the following year.
When I grow them in the summer, after the flowers been out for a while and starts to fade, just clip it off or dead head it as it's called, and I just lay it on the top of the soil, and the seeds will send roots right down into the soil and start from there.
I had to railing window boxes one for my son, and one for the tenants boy upstairs, I let them pick out what ever they wanted. We got several different marigolds,~big gold ones, rust and yellow, little yellow ones, and big yellow ones.
And we got
Ageratums (very easy to plant, as it doesn't really matter how deep you seem to plant them, they seem to root along the stem....good for boys )
we got cherry tomatoes,
cherry tomatoes green peppers, several different petunia's...
At first I looked at the color combo and wanted to say something, but they were picking them out..
I helped them in the placement of their planting, and you know it came out great looking.
And they were up in a tree house railing, back in WIND ALLEY we call it, and they got wind whipped, and they did beautifully!!!

Weezie,

Oh, just read your other post, that's neat,
Karen and I (Catlover) have a little thing going here about getting more people from her own state here,
so, here' you go Karen :p , a transplanted Californian!!!)

Keep those questions coming and someone who more into the houseplants will be through!!!

Your son's spider plant will do best if you hang it in your sunniest window; the more light the better. As long as the plant is not in direct contact with a heating element, the vents should not be a problem. They may cause the soil to dry out more frequently, but that is easy to deal with. Good light is the most important thing you can do for his spider.

Have your son practice sticking his finger in the soil. When the soil feels dry down to his first knuckle, then it is time to water it. If your tap water is on the hard side, then it is better to use filtered, distilled or rainwater instead.

When he waters, it is best if he takes it to the sink and waters it very thoroughly. The excess water will run out of the drainage holes and into the sink in a couple of minutes.

Remove the fertilizer sticks. They won't help and they may burn some of the roots.

Use scissors to trim off any leaves or leaf tips that are discolored. This won't make the plant healthier, but it will make it look better; call it good grooming!

If you keep the spider on the potbound side, then that will increase the chances that it will produce baby plants and kids always enjoy that.

Good luck with it!

Thanks for the help Will!

Question on the baby plants - how do you know that there are "babies"

He has said he wants to plant the babies to make a new plant, but I don't know the first thing about how to do that.

Will the plant ever get back to the fullness it first had? When he brought it home it was a huge plant with lots of leaves but now you can see through the plant so many of the leaves have died off.

ECrazyFan8,
There is a picture of a spider plant on this site
and URL, click that, see the plants hanging from the plants, those are the babies......
When they get big enough you can either snip one off and plant it or if you like to help it one step better, leave it on the momma plant, and
tuck a pot under the one baby you want to do....
Tuck it into the soil but leave attached to momma, and the momma will feed it until the baby makes roots of it's own, and then you can snip the attached part from momma to baby off....
The Garden Helper/Bill\'s Info/Picture

Did that make sense to you????
(sometimes, I'm a bad explainer???)

Weezie

This old thread might be of some help?......

spider plants

Thank you for all the posts. Looking at the picture someone referred me to and the old thread mentioned, I don't know now if my son's plant is a spider plant. His looks nothing like that, it is purple and green with little leaves.

Wandering Jew????

Weezie

You said they planted these in school???
Can you ask the teacher??
Probably would know, or the package where it came from??

<img border="0" alt="[clappy]" title="" src="graemlins/clappy.gif" />

THAT'S IT!!!! A Wandering Jew, just saw a picture of it! Thanks for all the help, even though I had the wrong name of the plant!

My son thought that was what the teacher told him the name was!

So, NOW WHAT, anyone know what I can do to make it look good again! <img border="0" alt="[perplexed]" title="" src="graemlins/confused.gif" />

welcome to the garden helper
that is easy to do with wandering jews.

first, cut all the brown stuff off.
next, anything that is leggy (long stems, leaves only at the bottom) cut off, but do not discard (more on those later)
then, make sure that the soil isn't "dried out" as in rock hard. if it is, soak it in a pot of water for about two hours, then let drain well. if you have the opposit problem and it is soggy, tip the pot over the sink to get all the excess water out of it. do this several times over the course of a couple of hourse.
finally, put it where it gets good light, and the air vent does not blow down on it. up is ok, just like will said.


now, about the leggy parts you cut off. gather however many you have, put them im bunches of 4-6, put them in clear bottles of water where the water covers the stem over at least 2 nodes (or joints) from the bottom. change the water weekly (i use the "discard" water to water my other plants) and rinse the stems. you should soon have roots and new growth. i don't remember how long, but seems like not more than a couple of weeks. when you have a good bunch, plant them in a small/med pot and viola! you have a new wandering jew for another room in the house!!

Hi,

I find spider plants extreamly easy to keep and they are grown all over my house with really no differance dispite the differance in temperature and light. I'm sorry to hear that yours is not doing so well. That's too bad Anyway I have been reading and other plants seem to keep coming up over and over, especially marigolds. Personally ever since i was little i disliked marigolds, don't ask me why. If you don't care about flowers then plant an herb called chickory. It thrives just about anywhere and is impossible to kill! Trust me for the past three years I've been trying to get mine out of my garden. It used to be a houseplant but got to big. One year it grew to astounding sizes until it was as big as I was! Yikes!