Hello everyone!

I am BRAND NEW to this forum and look forward to learning a lot about plants. I'm from Chelmsford MA and love gardening. I have lots of plants in my cubicle at work and I have 3 different gardens at home: Peony & Spiderwort garden, a large flower garden and a rather large wildflower garden.

I have a question: My Spider plant (variegated) not only has shoots with babies on it, but it has two little seed pods growing off of one of the shoots. I was very suprised to find this - I've never seen or heard of this on a Spider plant. Has anyone seen this? And does anyone know when they're ripe for picking/planting? They have been green for weeks and you can see the little dark-colored seeds inside.

Thanks in advance!!

Hi & Welcome,

You must have a green thumb. I have a black thumb but I love hearing about other peoples successes. I don't know the answer to your question I've never been able to keep a spider plant alive. But I did want to say welcome.

Thank you!!!


So do you have a garden or any houseplants?
(I can't imagine not existing without all my plants around me!)

GinaD,
I'm going to move your post down into the
HOUSE PLANT SECTION and you'll get more
responses to your question in there.....

And in the meantime, look around, there's lot's to do here, lot's of different types of gardening
in and out of the house...
and all sorts of stuff to do, even in the middle of the winter time too, for later on....

And we have several members from your state as well, our own Loz is from there..
Stick around, join the fun and jump right on in..

I have both and I am new to both. Inside I have a jade that thinks it's a vine, a succulent 'dudley white dwight' ground cover, it thinks it's a catapilar and will pull up roots and move if I change it's light allocation. A purple passion that is becoming a topiary of sorts. A coleus 'fack' that was a suprise in some old potting soil that I recycled. A crowd of white caladium that are really happy in a dark corner. A small verigated aloe, he's the politest of the plants so far. Chives, one surviving parsley twig and marigolds that were rescued from the watercress outside. That stuff went nuts lol.

Outside besides the watercress I have more marigolds, cannas, miniature snapdragons, coriander, more chives, green onions domestic and wild, ipomposis, dwarf evergreens, wild roses, tomatoes, columbine, moss roses, zinnia, peonies, hosta, dianthus, and glads. Whew that list is getting long lol. Oh and lots and lots of weeds, two tulip poplar and one maple of some sort. And lets not forget the honey suckle. Can't forget that it might get upset. And the poison oak but that wasn't on purpose.

WOW!!! It certainly doesn't sound like you have a black thumb! I LOVE Coleus and Caladium! I forgot to mention that in my list of gardens I also have a shade garden with both of those including Bleeding Heart, Lily of the Vally and my all time favorite plant, Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
What zone are you in? You named a plant I don't recognize...(ipomposis?)

welcome to the forum Gina! What i would do in the case of ur spider plant, is put the seed pod on top of another layer of soil ^.^ I think the seed pod will probably be ripe when it falls off not too sure though. Will Creed might know ^.^

Anywho, I'm the house plant queen around here you should see my stuff in my webshots! everyone likes to look at and download from my september 2004 ones, but the most recient one is the may 2005 ^.^ so yay!

~Phoebe

Thanks, Phoebe!
Unfortunately, I could not open your webshots.
Could be our firewall...

well Gina I thought I had posted a reply but maybe not lol. Let me try again.

Ipomopsis I think is a more accurate spelling. I'm very unfamiliar with plants and their names so it can get interesting at times. JV thought I was saying a bad word when I tried to name the coleus I have lol.

Lets see I think I'm in 7a but I'm not promising anything lol.

Well this is the plants first year and I figure we have a long way to go. And they are all considered to be easy to grow plants soooooo. And I won't mention how many I have killed to get to this point (bad momma).

Hi Gina,

Spider plant seed pods are not unusual. You can try to germinate them, but they are often sterile. Those that do germinate revert to all green.

The better way to propagate spiders is to plant the babies. As clones, they will maintain the variegation.

Hey Will
Big, Big spider plant, sending out babies like crazy and still getting brown tips on the leaves. I am using bottled water on it. What gives?
Hummm.

Hi Michele,

It could be you are letting the soil get too dry or maybe keeping it too wet. Is it getting enough light? Are you overfertilizing? Have you added perlite to the soil?

Can you e-mail me a photo so I can see the extent of the problem?

9 months, 1 week. Just enough time to have a baby before the wedding!

"It could be you are letting the soil get too dry or maybe keeping it too wet."

Not sure. It droops when I've negleted to water it too long and its not doing that. I will have to use a stick or something to check the deep soil to see about the moisture level.

"Is it getting enough light?"

It sits right next to a northern facing window. Usual seems to do ok, but with the "June gloom" going on right now, hard to say.

"Are you overfertilizing?"

It got new dirt 6 monthes ago and one dose of fertalizer a month and half ago.

"Have you added perlite to the soil?"

No.

"Can you e-mail me a photo so I can see the extent of the problem?"

Soon as I can. I will have to get my hands on the honey's digital camera!

"9 months, 1 week. Just enough time to have a baby before the wedding!"

NO WAY! ROFL. I am not doing that!

Thanks, Will!

Now I won't be hoping fruitlessly (please excuse the pun) for new variegated plants from the seeds - and just concentrate on the babies already in development.

Michele,
Just as an FYI, my spider plant is VERY happy just sitting in my cubicle under florescent lights and getting a good watering just on Fridays (just enough for the water to start to come out the bottom of the pot). And everytime I water it I put just a couple of drops of liquid Miracle grow in the water. I hope that helps somewhat, but I'm sure Will can advise you much better than I.
Good luck!

Tkhooper,
I Googled the Ipomopsis and it looks like there are a lot of varieties, and it looks like it's some sort of a trumpet flower? Does it attract hummingbirds?
*{I LOVE hummingbirds!!!!!!}*

Hi Michele,

Lack of light might be the problem. Can you move it right in front of the window.

Even a single instance of soil dryness can produce a lot of lower leaf brown tips. Because the tips never return to green, it is a good idea to trim off the brown tips periodically so you monitor whether the situation is improving or continuing to decline.

What do you mean it got new dirt 6 months ago? Did you move it into a larger pot at that time? If so from what size to what size? Have you trimmed the brown leaf tips off since you repotted?

I guess breast-feeding in a wedding gown isn't such a good idea after all. Tell your fiance to behave himself in the interim.

Will

P.S. I didn't get my wedding invitation yet!

Hi Will
It is sitting right by the window. Can't get it any closer without throwing it out the window! LOL

I did check the soil, deep, and it was a bit dry, so I dumped half a gallon of water on it. Its a big plant and in a good sized pot, and usually takes a lot of water.

What I mean by new dirt is that every other year, I pull it out of the pot, remove a bunch of roots, get new potting soil and repot in, in the same pot. I have to keep it in the same size pot, if I go up another size or two, I won't be able to pick the the plant up! Plant is used to this now, by the way, it has some storage roots at the top now cause it knows I don't take all of those off! LOL
Smart plant.

I do try to trim the brown ends off but that can be a project sometimes.

Its weird. Overall, its a very healthy plant, except for the brown tips.

PS on the wedding invites-- keep waiting! :p

Hi Michele,

I have discovered that "by the window" sometimes means off to the side of the window for some people. Not for you, so that's good. No need to push it out the window!

When watering, it is best to thoroughly drench the entire root ball each time you water and then wait until the top half-inch or so dries out before watering again. (This assumes the plant is in the proper sized pot.) Less than complete watering can create mineral hot spots and dry spots near the roots and that may cause leaf tipping.

I recall that you said you use filtered water. Hard water is a definite cause of leaf-tipping, but I assume that is not an issue here.

Regular root pruning and soil replacement is OK, but it will cause some leaf damage each time. Just trim off the damaged leaeves and don't worry about it.

Try to avoid using perlite in your potting mix. Perlite contains fluoride, which causes leaf tipping.

Make sure all of the roots are covered by potting soil when you repot. Root exposure to air will cause leaf-tipping.

Overall, I don't think you have a problem. All spider plants get some routine leaf-tipping. All you can do is minimize it by doing the things I suggested above.

All this helpful information and I can't even make the wedding list cut! You should have seen the beautiful wedding gift I had all picked out for you. Oh, well.

Seriously, all best wishes to you and your lucky fiance.

Sounds like I really shouldn't worry about it then. Just keep it by the light and well watered. It is a sturdy plant and has surived a dose of ant poison ( I did not dump that stuff on the plant, someone else did, and I flushed it out) and a full on kitten assult, so it's pretty tough.
Now if I could just figure out the orchid... Sigh.
That's for another post.

Thanks Will, for the advice and good wishes!