How to Propagate a Spider Plant (Water and Soil Methods)

Spider plants basically hand you free plants. Look for the long yellowish stems arching out from the main plant, these are the runners. Along each one you'll spot little clusters of leaves called spiderettes, or plantlets. Those are the babies you're going to root.

Some babies are big and ready, others are tiny and just getting started. Bigger plantlets root faster and transplant more easily, so start by picking out the largest ones on the runners.

Turn the baby over and look at the underside where the leaves meet. You're hunting for a small bump, almost like a little pimple, sometimes with tiny root tips already poking out. That bump is where the roots will grow.

A plantlet that already shows a few root nubs will root much faster than a bare one. It's not required, but it gives you a big head start, so favor those when you can.

Hold the baby in one hand and cut the runner on both sides of it with a clean pair of scissors or pruning shears. Then trim off the leftover stub of stem so you're left with a tidy little plantlet.

Clean blades matter here. A quick wipe with rubbing alcohol keeps you from passing anything between plants. Cut close to the base of the baby but don't nick the leaves.

You have two easy routes. The classic one is water: drop the base of each plantlet into a clear jar of water and you'll watch roots form. The other is a damp substrate like coco coir or sphagnum moss, which holds moisture nicely around the roots and gives a smoother move into soil later.

Clear vessels let you watch the roots and check moisture at a glance. Set them on a windowsill with bright indirect light, an east or north window is ideal, and top off the water when it runs low. A loose piece of plastic wrap with a few holes punched in it traps humidity and speeds things along.

Now the hard part: patience. Give the babies about a month. During that time, keep the substrate damp or the water topped up and leave them in that bright indirect spot. If you covered them for humidity, you'll barely need to water at all.

After a few weeks, lift a plantlet out and look. You want a healthy tangle of white roots, a couple of inches long, before you pot anything up. Thick, pale, noodle-like roots mean the baby is ready for soil.

Once the roots are ready, gently brush away the moss or coir clinging to them. You don't have to get every bit off, just enough to separate the plantlets from each other and see what you're working with.

If roots are tangled and won't come apart easily, stop. It's far better to leave a little substrate stuck on than to rip off a bunch of roots trying to clean them. Coir tends to fall away easier than fluffy sphagnum, so go slow with the mossy ones.

Grab a small pot, terracotta is great because it breathes and helps prevent rot. Cover the drainage hole with a chunk of bark or a bit of long fiber sphagnum so your mix doesn't wash out. Fill the pot partway with a well-draining potting mix that still holds some moisture.

Space the babies evenly around the pot and fill in around the roots. Keep the soil off the leaves where they meet the base, burying that crown can lead to rot. Tap the pot on the table a few times to settle the mix and close up any air pockets.

Give the newly potted babies a thorough drink so the mix settles around every root, then set them back in that bright indirect window. A little diluted liquid fertilizer in the first watering helps them push new growth as they settle in.

Spider plants don't like to stay bone dry, so water when the top of the mix starts to dry out. From here it's just light, water, and time. Before long these babies fill out into full plants that throw runners of their own, and you can propagate all over again.