Spider plants are among the simplest houseplants to maintain but don’t be alarmed if yours starts to develop a few brown leaves. If your plant’s fronds turn yellow, it grows too massive for its container, or it produces a lot of baby plants, it’s time to trim. Do you know how to prune spider plants?
It’s not as hard as you think! You prune spider plants by carefully cutting away foliage near the plant’s bottom with clean cutters. Then, to keep the main plant nourished, start by removing most of the baby plants.
Trimming spider plants increases their overall health and vigor while keeping them at a more preferable and controllable length. Furthermore, the more newborns it tends to produce, the more nutrient and water the plant requires, as this consumes a large portion of its energy.
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Why Do You Need to Trim Your Spider Plants?
The spiderettes produced by the plant are nutritional drainers. They drench up compost and moisture while floating from the parent plant.
This allows the spiderettes to develop roots rapidly and be cultivated in their very own pot. Still, if you abandon them connected for too long, your primary spider plant may lack any nutrient content. Extracting the spiderettes and pruning the plant will help keep it fresh.
Brown tips are another rationale for trimming your spider plants. Too much bright sun, or even too many sulfates or chlorine in the water supplied to the plant, can induce this. These substances will be found in city tap water, causing the leaves to turn brown.
See Also: Different Spider Plant Varieties
How To Prune Spider Plants
When pruning a spider plant, any fronds that are stripped away should be excluded from the plant’s core. Spider plants are resilient and can develop up to three feet in diameter and length without trimming, so separating some vegetation from the core will not harm the plant. Get rid of any splotchy or dead leaves.
That said, let's look at the process of pruning spider plants:
1. Repot Spider Plants
When a spider plant becomes overgrown, it indicates that it requires a larger pot. It is best to move your spider plant to the next size pot before pruning to allow it to grow properly.
2. Remove the roots
Examine the roots of your spider plant while repotting. Surprisingly, this plant also requires root snipping because it became root confined as a result of a small container or overwatering. To fully examine the foliage base, dust off the roots. You can also tidy the roots with a garden aerosol.
Then, using your garden scissors, trim the dying roots and oversized roots. Root trimming will allow the plant to grow for a long time without being transplanted.
3. Fertilizer should be added.
Before repotting the spider plant, add fertilizer after root trimming. Add some repotting soil and crucial fertilizer to the new plant, humidify it, and your spider plant is ready to go!
4. Remove the brown and yellow leaves
The first step is to remove and throw away any leaf litter around the perimeter. Next, especially at the top and making your way down, use your palms or sharp shears to cut back lengthy stems as much as conceivable without harming new growths or too many leaves from other parts of the plants.
Benefits of Pruning Spider Plants
People trim their indoor plant catalog for many purposes, and it’s an important part of home spider plant care.
Trimming can make plants revert to a tidy condition when too large or rowdy. Furthermore, removing excess tissue can encourage the growth of the remaining tissue.
Pruning can sometimes be essential even when plants are of the appropriate sizes. Extracting brown tips, dying, sickly, or pest-infested tissue induced by spider mites will assist plants in directing their energy toward healthy tissue.
Furthermore, reducing infected tissue can help to keep the problem from expanding.
What Are the Necessary Trimming Instruments for Spider Plants?
You’ll have to obtain the necessary equipment before you start trimming.
A set of garden shears or pruning lopers is the perfect tool for trimming spider plants. You can, however, use either scissors or a machete. Whichever tool you choose, make sure it’s sleek and sterilized.
You can make accurate, tidy cuts by preserving your tool sharp. This causes as little harm to the plant as possible, increasing the likelihood that it will heal quickly.
To avoid contamination, you must also disinfect your tool. One alternative is to drench your tools for 30 minutes in a 10% bleach solution. Some other alternative is to use isopropyl alcohol to clean your equipment.
See Also: Plants Like Spider Plant
How to Care for a Spider Plant
Any foliage that is trimmed should be clipped at the plant’s bottom. When trimming spider plants, only use ratchet pruners, rapid trimmers, or shears. As required, detach any discolored, sickly, or dying greenery. To eliminate the spiderettes, snip the protracted trunks from the mother and baby plants back down to earth.
Repotting, concerning trimming, may be required for unkempt or pot-bound crops. Transplant the spider plant after trimming, giving a good root trimming before restoring it to the pot of completely new soil. In summary, root pruning should be completed at least once a year or two.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much farther back can a spider plant be cut?
This entails snipping the outer edge root systems and trimming them back by 1” inch. If you’re concerned about negatively impacting the plant, avoid cutting the roots too deeply and consider dividing them instead. You can trim any spiderettes as you move along the plant.
What is the lifespan of spider plants?
These trees can live for 20-50 years when properly cared for! Are you ready for this? The two most popular cultivars, chlorophytum comosum vittatum and chlorophytum comosum variegatum have a standard lifespan of around 20 years.
What is the maximum size of a spider plant?
Plants grow to be 12-15′′ tall. The silky, bulbous roots and rhizomes developed to store water, enabling it to withstand infrequent watering. The spider plant produces small white flowers.
What should I do with a spider plant in my home?
Position the plant in a vibrant area to mitigate light in a warm enough room for everyone. Maintain a slight moisture level in the soil. In the spring and summer, once-week watering is adequate; it enables the soil to dry out a little more between watering in the winter.
Do spider plants enjoy being misted?
Your Spider Plant will flourish in high humidity climates but low humidity environments. Brown leaf tips suggest that the air is too light, so sprinkle your Spider Plant with a Mister regularly. Your plant favors temperature changes ranging from 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Is it okay if I leave the newborns on my spider plant?
Yes, you are permitted to leave the babies on your spider plant. If the sprouts take root, they may even begin to produce their offspring. Should you choose to leave the babies tethered to the spider plant, you will need to supplement the parent plant with nutrients.
See Also: How to Revive a Dying Spider Plant
Conclusion
Even though spider plants have lovely leaves and a lovely saggy shape (in addition to many beneficial properties), their development can sometimes become out of grasp. Before you know it, your spider plant wants to push other plants out of the situation and produce an endless supply of spider babies.
This is where trimming your potted plant comes in. Trimming will help manage spider plant diseases and pacify out-of-control growth, allowing your plant to remain viable.
You can trim spider plants inside to reduce their size, eliminate diseased tissue, and eliminate spiderettes. When pruning, always use a pointed, sterilized device to make tidy cuts. Never detach more than one-third of a plant’s tissue at the moment.
