Episode 13 Spiderplants
The Spider plant or Chlorophytum comosum growing native in South Africa
Jane Perrone’s podcast On The Ledge is a great place to learn about all things ‘houseplant.’ I can also recommend her recently published book - Legends of the Leaf. Dr Ernst van Jaarsveld is a horticulturist with a specialisim in South African indigenous plants. He also does a lot of expeditions searching for plants. He has previously worked at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. He currently works at Babylonstoren, one of the oldest Cape Dutch Farms. I found this clip of Ernst briefly talking to Monty Don at Babylonstoren.
Below are photographs from Dr Ernst van Jaarsveld of the plant growing natively in South Africa.
The flower and vegetative pup, the second in habitat in the Eastern Cape and last, also a plant in habitat,
Attached some photos of C. comosum in habitat in the Eastern Cape.
I photographed these on our rubber canoe expeditions along the river valleys, the habitat of Chlorophytum comosum at Mtata with Aloe barberae.
Mercy Morris and Sam Green both hold National Plant Collections of Chlorophytum comosum or Spider plants and below is a picture of Sam with her collection, housed in a greenhouse.
HOW TO - though I’m thinking that this has to be the most chilled houseplant!
Some of the varieties mentioned in the episode.
Chlorophytum comosum ‘Variegatum’
Chlorophytum comosum ‘Vittatum’
Where would you get your spider plant?
There's no way around it calling them babies because everybody calls them babies. You can call them plantlets if you want but everybody just calls them babies. Most people would just give you a spider plant baby. You can get a lot of them in nurseries and garden centres. Most house plant areas will have one. There's quite a few more interesting ones on the internet.
Normally you'd put the babies in some water and wait for the roots to grow and then put them in some sort of potting medium. Yeah. I mean with a baby you can forget them for a year as long as you remember to fill their little glass of water up. They'll get their roots in a few weeks quite happily or a couple of weeks possibly if it's nice and warm. But if you haven't got the time then don't worry they'll chill in their little glass of water quite happily.
What potting medium would you use?
I don't think they're that fussy. Buy something without peat. They're basically pretty easy going is what we're saying here. One thing I made the mistake of doing once was feeding mine using control release fertilizer in little balls, the Osmocote stuff. And I found that it got stuck between the leaves a lot and it burns the leaves if it gets stuck and you have to take it out with tweezers, which is time consuming. So if you're using that mix it into the compost before, don't just shove it on the top. So would you wait till you see signs that it needs feeding before you feed it or do you just feed it anyway or do you just feed it when you remember or when you're feeding something else? All of the above!
Should you repot it regularly?
Yes! The advice here from everyone was repot your Spider plant - we’ll wait if you like, while you dear reader, pop out and do it now….Jane has done hers, I’ve done mine!
What aspect do they like?
I mean, they're quite tolerant of all conditions really. I keep mine in greenhouse and because that's where there's space for them. And I think they they're happy enough there, but they'd probably like it perhaps less sunny, but they're fine in there as well. It's just what they're used to. They need to be sort of frost free really. They need watering, but they can suffer a bit without too many consequences. Yeah, those big fat roots hold a lot of water, so they're not that bothered. I find I had mine out in the garden again because there's not enough room for all of them at home. They like it outside really and they went through that really hot period. They weren't bothered because they acclimatised to the sunshine. They thought, fine.
Have you ever planted them out in the garden? I've got a few out that have been out. They must have been out for just under a year now and they are just coming back. They're not that big. They defoliated in the Winter but they all seem to be alive, I don't think any of them have died. They look nice in the flower beds as well.
I was thinking actually, the other thing about the light is that they change colour according to the light. So... some of the cultivars will be quite different colors if they're grown in really bright light than if they're grown in the shade. So I've got, hang on a minute, I won't show you it because it's an audio medium, but I've got a Hawaiian that I've had indoors for the winter and it's almost plain green, whereas in the sun it will have quite bright white stripes and bits of lime green and in the part shade it would be lime greeny yellowy. green. So yeah, they all look quite different in different lights.