What it is
Spider Plant (Chlorophytum comosum) is in the Asparagaceae family. Sends out baby spiderettes on runners that root in a snap - a generous, pet-safe, near-indestructible houseplant.
How to grow it
It wants bright indirect light, water it moderate, and give it any potting mix soil. Target a soil pH around 6.0-6.5. Space plants about Pot apart. Expect roughly Plantlets root easily. Tender houseplant.
How it's used
Spider Plant is used: houseplant; air-cleaning.
🔎 How to identify it
- Arching strappy striped leaves
- Runners with plantlets
- Clumping crown
Not for eating
How to grow & propagate spider plant
Everything I've worked out about starting this one, keeping it alive through a Texas year, and turning one plant into many — free.
How to propagate spider plant
This family is propagated by division or by planting dormant crowns. Asparagus is the long game — plant one-year crowns and wait two full seasons before your first real harvest, but then a bed produces for fifteen or twenty years. The succulent members throw offsets ('pups') you can lift and pot up.
Growing spider plant in Texas
Give it bright indirect light and any potting mix soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
Time your planting to our long warm season and watch the frost dates at both ends; the live weather tool on this site is built for exactly that.
In a container it'll dry faster than in the ground, so check the top inch of soil daily in summer; pots on a hot Texas patio can need water every single day.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly plantlets root easily before you're harvesting. Pick herbs in the morning after the dew dries for the strongest oils, and harvest little and often — regular cutting keeps a herb bushy and stops it bolting.
Making more for free
Every seed we sell is open-pollinated, which means you can save your own from the best plants and it'll grow true next year. Let a few of your strongest plants finish and go to seed, dry it fully, and store it cool and dark. That's the whole point of heirlooms — buy once, grow forever.
Part of the free Texas Roots plant database, compiled by Jordan Polasek from his greenhouse in El Campo, Texas. Free to read and share. If it helped, the best thanks is to grow something.