How To Propagate Spider Plants – With and Without Spiderettes

One of the best things about these plants is how easy they are to propagate. In fact, one of the simplest ways to tell if you have a healthy spider plant is whether or not it’s making babies. Happy spider plants will consistently create new offshoots of themselves. A long stem called a stolon will arch up out of the plant with a tiny new baby spider plant on the end of it – a spiderette.

The spiderette is a perfectly formed miniature just ready to be propagated.

You can fill your house with friendly green air filters or give your friends and family an easy-care houseplant and the gift of clean air. New spider plants can be propagated both with spiderettes and without them. Let’s take a look at all the ways you can propagate spider plants.

Propagating With Spiderettes

If your spider plant has put out spiderettes, it’s telling you it’s ready to take over the world. Of course, you don’t need to remove these baby spider plants. You can leave them attached, and they will continue to grow right along with the main plant, even creating spiderettes of their own.

Before you use a spiderette for propagation though, it’s important to look at the bottom. To successfully put out roots, the spiderette must have a node, a tiny nob at the very base of the leaves.

As long as your baby spider plant has a node, you’re good to go. If one hasn’t developed yet, leave it attached to the stolon until a node develops.

Cutting Spiderettes from the Stolon

For several of these propagation methods, you’ll be cutting the spiderettes from the stolon. As always, whenever you are cutting a plant, it’s important to use a sterile cutting implement. You have two choices when making your cut.

If you’re looking to encourage more spiderettes, cut the stolon as close to the base of each new spiderette as possible, leaving the majority of the stolon intact. New spiderettes will develop along the stolen.

However, if you have enough spider plants and your family won’t let you in the door until you prove you aren’t smuggling in new plants, snip off the entire stolon at the base of the main plant.

Now let’s get propagating!

Propagate In the Same Pot

This is one of my favorite things to do with spiderettes, as it takes seconds and requires no equipment or tools. And I’m lazy.

Gently grasp the spiderette and press it into the soil of the main plant’s pot. You don’t even need to cut the stolon. The baby spider plant will take root over a few weeks.

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