My poor Spiderplant! Can anyone help?

Hello, I just signed up here and LOVE the site so far! I'm hoping you guys can help me.

My Spiderplant "Fernando" suddenly took a turn for the worse about a month ago. Nothing had changed environment -wise that I could think of. Fernando is hanging under a skylight, however ilthr glass is frosted so the light isn't harsh. Fernando has always been under the skylight and seemed to love it. She had, and still has many babies. A few weeks ago I thhought thatfernando needed a break from motherhood and cut about a dozen of the biggilest babies off and rooted them. I also gave Fernando a little liquid fertilizer (I did a half strength dilution and then diluted that half and half again. Lol I was scared). Fernando was doing really well for about a week and a half then suddenly started getting dull and droopy. The whit line in her leaves is a lime green not white like they used to be, and the new leaves and runners seem to be a lot thinner. This past weekend I realized that the water was practically running straight out of the pot when if give her a drink. I looked at the bottom and saw roots coming through the drain holes. I finally got a chance to buy a pot today, so I repotted her in a 10inch pot instead of an 8in.

Is there anything else I can do? I LOVE this plant. I've even grown babies from her SEEDS. now that is FUN to watch.

Hi, there.

Just a few ideas:

Water running immediately out of the pot is not always a bad thing. Fast drainage is good. Plants can drown if their roots don't get SOME air (don't keep the soil constantly soggy).
Fenando might just need a break from all that reproduction. Furthermore, I have a white spider that occasionally looks a little green-striped depending on how much light it got that week. Or the lime color could just be new growth.

Repotting is a good idea; however, many spiders can live pot-bound for years. I think the worst thing you could do would be to re-pot "up" in a pot too large. Going from 8" to 10" sounds fine.

Sometimes, the best way to save a plant is to keep its babies going. I do this for my green and varigated spiders. My aging green spider looks old and worn but keeps reproducing. I don't throw it out because I like to keep a producer on hand in case I ever start my own plant business.

Hope some of this helps!
~Timmijo

I left the following on this forum recently. You may find something of value in it:

While necrotic leaf tips or margins can occur in this plant from over/under-watering, in fact, it's much more common for the actual cause to be a high level of soluble salts in soils. It's also commonly reported that this plant is particularly intolerant or fluoride, but it's still more common for the cause of leaf burn to be a high level of solubles, to which fluoride can be a contributor, than it is to be fluoride itself. WHEN there is a high level of salts in the soil, low humidity can be a contributor, but low humidity alone rarely presents an issue, it must be in combination with a high level of soluble salts in the soil or either over/under-watering.

Of course, you cannot correct the already burned tips (they won't 'heal'), but you can take steps to keep it from happening:

A) Most important is to use a soil that drains very freely. This allows you to water copiously, flushing the accumulating salts from the soil each time you water.

B) Fertilize frequently when the plant is growing well, but at low doses - perhaps 1/4 the recommended strength. This, in combination with the favorable watering habit described above, will keep soluble salts levels low, and keep levels from rising due to the accumulative effect we always see when we are forced to water in sips when plants are in water-retentive soils.

C) When watering, using rainwater, snow melt, water from your dehumidifiers, or distilled water also eliminates the soluble salts in your tap water and will go a long way toward eliminating or minimizing leaf burn.

D) If you make your own soils and use perlite, be sure the perlite is rinsed thoroughly, which removes most of the fluorides associated with it's use.

E) Allowing water to rest overnight doesn't do anything in the way of helping reduce the amount of fluoride (the compounds are not volatile), and it only helps with chlorine in certain cases, depending on what method of chlorination was used to treat your tap water.

Al