Spider Plant is not producing babies

Someone gave me a spider plant that she had rooted from the babies of her plant. I planted the spider plant in a pot. It is getting big but not producing babies now and has not produced any babies at all. I have had it for quite some time. It is in a bay window. In the winter, it gets lots of sunlight but in the summer it doesn't get as much. There are deciduous trees growing in front of the window. I water it but do not fertilize it. Why isn't it growing babies? Does it need different lighting? Does it need fertilizer? If so, what kind?
Thank you.
Heidi

How long is "quite some time"? When you get a plant as a baby, sometimes it can take a while before it's ready to make its own babies, and if it's still growing then maybe it's still focusing on getting bigger rather than making babies. Most plants do need fertilizer from time to time so if you have had this one for a long time and haven't fertilized it, it probably would be a good idea to feed it every now and then although I'm not sure that's why it hasn't made babies yet.

Spider plants do like bright light while they are actively growing during the summer months. Since your trees will naturally have leaves during that time, they are likely shading the window and depriving the spider plant from getting enough light. Also, spiders tend to produce babies better when they get a little root bound. And ecrane is right--your plant would appreciate a little fertilizer.

I was going to volunteer and say it likes to be root bound. I have a few spider plants, one I bought and the rest were babies. I've had them quite a while now and no babies, it will just need to get big and strong enough before it can produce babies. I'm not worried if mine do or don't produce babies - I'd love them to however so long as the plant is healthy I wouldn't worry about it.

They do take quite a while to produce babies when they are started as a baby.

as nature lover said, it takes time. your plant is probally still alittle to young to produce "babies."

my experience with spider plants, and I've got quite a few, is that they will not produce "babies" until they are just about root-bound. When the pot fills up with roots, you'll have more kids than you can handle----

I don't think that being rootbound has anything to do with stolon/plantlet growth. Plants, unlike humans and animals, have two 'ages'. One is their chronological age,m measured in weeks/months,/years, just like ours. The second age, is it's ontogenetical age. Humans, like plants, go through several life stages - embryonic, juvenile, adolescent (intermediate in plants), and mature are stages roughly mirrored in plants. Where we vary greatly is in the way our cells age.

In animals, body cells all mature at approximately the same speed. Plants grow by consecutive divisions of cells at the growing points (meristems), so their various parts are different ages (the top of the plant is 'younger' than the basal portion, chronologically). So, if the plant has reached a sufficient age to have (sexually) mature tissues, the offsets/plantlets at stolon ends will occur naturally. So, the ontogenetic age of cloned plants (your new starts) is not the same as the chronological age of the parent plant, but a new plant in juvenile phase that is yet to become mature enough to reproduce.

In situ (where the plant naturally occurs), the plant manages to reproduce profusely w/o the benefit of the tight confines of a small pot, so if the plants SEEM to produce more plantlets when they are tight, it's only a coincidence because they are becoming sexually mature at approximately the same time they are getting tight in the pot. Things are not always as they seem. ;o)

The short version: There is nothing wrong with your plant that patience won't fix, unless husbandry puts a roadblock in the way.

Al

Should I start all of these baby spiders I have in starter pots so they become fuller faster?

and can I put more than 1 baby in a pot

The larger the pot, the faster they will increase in size and the faster they will mature, but there is a three-way relationship between the size of the plant material, how fast/porous the soil is, and how large the pot is. If the soil is very fast and holds no perched water (a layer of saturated soil at the bottom of the pot) there is no upper limit to pot size, but if the soil DOES hold perched water, you have to choose your pot size to allow for the rapid return of air to the soil, so a smaller pot is REQUIRED to prevent root rot.

This is a copy/paste job of comments I left on a competing forum site within the last few days. It may be of interest to you:

"I'll offer two very important things I think it takes to grow this plant well, and by 'well', I mean growing at close to the genetic potential built into the plant while keeping the plant attractive. You need to be cautious about the frequency with which you water, and you need to prevent the build-up of soluble salts in the soil. This plant is particularly reactive to high salt levels, and especially those compounds that form with fluorine. For that reason, it's wise to make your own soils that drain freely and eliminate perlite from those soils to eliminate a source of fluoride. (I can help if you're interested.)
The soil should drain freely enough that when you water you can water copiously and flush the soil w/o any danger of root rot setting in. This should be done every time you water. Weak doses of fertilizer at frequent intervals are better than fertilizing at recommended rates and intervals.

Your spider plant actually doesn't PREFER being root-bound. Like any plant, it will do exceedingly well in a very large container if the soil is fast enough. The plant in the picture would grow like crazzzy in a 10 gallon container, if the soil was made of particles large enough to guarantee the soil would hold no perched water (no saturated layer of soil at the container's bottom). Growth is measured by the increase of a plant's biomass, and I can't think of a single plant that does 'better' in cramped quarters. Before getting excited ;o) consider that because we might grow plants tight to bend them to our will, and because we see the results WE desire from the practice (e.g. some plants bloom better when grown under the stress of tight roots) doesn't mean that from the plant's perspective it's a good thing. The plant would prefer to have plenty of room for its roots to grow so it can maximize its mass - just like in nature. If tight little cramped quarters were best for plants, that's where Mother Nature would grow them.

I wanted a 'hot car', so I set it afire. Well yeah, you accomplished THAT goal and got what you wanted, but that doesn't mean it was the best choice for the car. ;o)

So to summarize:
* Get your watering procedure down pat - don't over-water

* Always fertilize and water with an eye toward maintaining the soluble salts level in the soil at the lowest level that will prevent deficiencies.

* Provide good light and favorable temperatures.

If you REALLY want to have a great looking plant with no, or absolutely minimal marginal or tip necrosis (burn) - water with distilled water, rainwater, or water collected from a dehumidifier."

Al

wow my family has always had these plants but I never knew all of this

Wow I am amazed at your knowledge!!! No perlite? Can you help us with the best potting mix, how much to add of what type with what? I want to make my own.
Thanks a bunch

Amalie

This message was edited Jul 12, 2009 8:15 PM

What? Perlite contains flouride?! Oh, nooooo.....just mixed a whole big bag of it in with a batch of soil! And I'm always careful to water my houseplants with either collected rainwater, or water that has 'aged' like for aquarium fish. I thought I was doing something good for drainage purposes--are all plants sensitive to flouride?

I has 15 babies and I devided them into 2 aprox. cup pots. Is this ok?

what type of fertlizer should I use? Will my merical grow work?

Fifteen! Congrats!
I always heard that potbound plants are more apt to reproduce, too, so I cram a lot of babies into one pot so they'll grow up and make more, sooner (like I need more, lol). Wow, tapla, thanks for the interesting info!

Edit: I just found this old thread where Tapla gives more info on soil mixes:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/796311/

One of your recipes contains perlite--have you changed it since then, or is perlite okay for some not-as-sensitive plants like spiders? Thanks!

This message was edited Jul 12, 2009 9:49 PM

ohh there was more on the "mommy" plant. It's my aunts I took the ones that already fell off

Some plants have toxic reactions to various elements at lower levels than most other plants. Spider plants (and many others in the families Liliaceae [and Marantaceae]) just happen to tolerate compounds of fluorine poorly and react negatively to even what we would consider relatively low concentrations. E.g., drinking water commonly has 1 ppm fluoride added, and 1 ppm in irrigation water is eventually enough to cause marginal and tip necrosis. Add to your tap water another heavy source of fluorine like single superphosphate, diammonium phosphate, triple superphosphate, or even resin coated slow release fertilizers, and you can almost be assured of appearance problems.

I should clear something up on the perlite thing. You CAN leach perlite of a good part of the fluorine-containing compounds if you rinse it thoroughly several times before you incorporate it into soils. Negative reactions from perlite are most often seen soon after potting or repotting - before your irrigating has had a chance to leach the fluorides from the soil.

Highly aerated soils are best. For all my houseplants, I use a mix of:
by volume
1 part screened (1/8-1/4"), uncomposted pine or fir bark
1 part screened Turface or NAPA floor-dry
1 part crushed granite (grower grit or #2 cherrystone)
gypsum
See following picture. Don't be alarmed that it looks like gravel. It works wonderfully. You get a highly aerated soil that lasts practically forever. The price you pay is the effort to find the ingredients to make it yourself and the effort to water more frequently.

I think a fertilizer with a 3:1:2 RATIO (24-8-16, 12-4-8, and 9-3-6 are examples of 3:1:2 ratio fertilizers) is best (for spiders and 95% of your other houseplants) because it comes closest (almost exactly) to supplying nutrients at the same ratio in which plants use them. This allows you to keep soluble salt levels at their lowest possible concentration while guarding against deficiencies.

Since Fl availability increases as pH decreases, we would probably want to stay away from urea-based fertilizers like MG. Dyna-Gro makes a fertilizer called 'Foliage-Pro' 9-3-6. It derives most of it's N from nitrate sources rather than urea, and it contains ALL the essential elements (most soluble fertilizers lack both Ca and Mg, and often other essential elements). I highly recommend it as your all-purpose fertilizer.

So again:

* Get your watering procedure down pat - don't over-water - you'd have to work very hard at over-watering plants in the soil I described above.

* Always fertilize and water with an eye toward maintaining the soluble salts level in the soil at the lowest level that will prevent deficiencies. Spiders don't need high fertility levels, so low doses of the fertilizer I suggested will go a looonng way toward keeping salts low

* Provide good light and favorable temperatures.



Al

Wow, that does look like gravel! But hey, if it works... Thanks for the fertilizer tip! What should I do with the tons of Miracle Gro I have aquired? lol

Use it for something other than spiders. If its 24-8-16 granular soluble All-Purpose or 12-4-8 liquid All-Purpose, it's a very good fertilizer for almost any plant you would be growing.

Al

Thanks, Al, will do!

Iluvcatz,

you posted a few weeks ago about saying shall I start the spiders in smaller pots to begin.

I've had a few baby ones, one I planted in a large pot and it's grown quite slowly, I've had a second baby from the same mother plant and the second baby has grown much quicker in a smaller pot, and the roots are bigger and stronger than the ones from the first baby in the large pot.

Things are not always as they seem. All else being equal, the technical take is it's not because of the size of the pot. It's because the three way relationship between the mass (size) of the plant material, the pot size, and the soil porosity (with the soil porosity being the key) is askew. If the soil was very fast so the plantlets were not over-potted and the soil not saturated for extended periods, the plants in the larger pot would outpace those in the smaller in growth. You can grow very small plants in VERY large pots if the soil is porous enough that it holds no (or very little) perched water.

Al

I have propagated many a spider babies from the same plant successfully over the last three-four years. I was a pro! Giving them as gifts, filling our home, etc! We moved about eight months ago and the plant continues to thrive despite three weeks in a warm dark moving truck. But this season's babies don't seem to be growing roots.... whether I leave them on the original plant, try them in water, or try them in dirt. (Those left on the plant are now getting so big they are weighing down the mama.) They have small little beads that look like the start of a root, but these beads remain the same and do not root. The baby I tried to grow in water is still alive, about two months in, but still has no roots growing as I am used to.

What's going on with these rootless babies? Can I fix? I have lots of empty pots to fill since so many others died in the moving truck!

The plantlets that form at stolens' ends will usually always have adventitious rots or root primordia visible, making them one of the easiest plants to root. Just put the plantlets in a well-aerated soil and keep the soils surface damp by misting the soil surface only, and you should have 100% success.

Al