I bought this spider plant on Feb 2 and noticed two days ago some of the leaves started turning yellow so I decided to repot it and I’m glad I did… this is the first time I’ve seen this in person. There was hardly any actual soil in the pot.
Mine was the same way! Where does the dirt go? 😆
1 likeI’ve read and seen videos that they “eat” the dirt… I have no idea. I’m new to this plant thing
0 likes
Their roots go insane don't they! Mine are forever filling up the pot. I would always pot up, but I watched a really good video about how you don't have to keep potting up spider plants, ou can actually just prune the roots. I haven't tried it myself yet but I'm going to give em all a good chop next time I have a plant session. The video is on the Sheffield Made Plants YouTube channel. His videos are great.
2 likes Not suggesting you need to prune those roots though, especially if it's a new plant. It's good to do when you've had the plant years and they're getting gnarly!
1 likeI will definitely go watch it, thanks.
0 likes
I would have definitely repotted it as well; but, just so you know for future reference 😉 Spider plants tend to only put out babies if they are some-what root bound... I LOVE the babies and all the little white flowers!
1 likeThat’s good to know. What about all the yellowing leaves?
0 likes
The yellowing leaves could be its way of letting you know it’s time to repot, and given how rootbound it is, that’s likely the cause. A lot of plants enjoy getting rootbound between repottings, but they still might wave us over for some fresh soil or a little more space eventually. It looks like there might be some type of plug or root cage hidden in the nest of roots from your photo, which might also be a cause of the yellowing leaves. It looks like your plant tried to rebel against the root cage and grow as many roots as possible to survive. If you want to see if removing some of it improves things for your plant, you could take an x-acto knife or box cutter and try carefully cutting the bottom of the root cage off, at least to inspect if the base of your plant’s roots were affected by the cage. If the roots look distressed or rotted once you remove the bottom of the cage, you might want to snip those roots off and spray the area with hydrogen peroxide. In the process of cutting some of the roots away, you might be able to pull or cut the rest of the root cage away. If the roots look as healthy as the ones outside of the root cage, then you don’t necessarily need to risk cutting the rest of it out, but I would try to do so if the roots aren’t looking too hot.
I saw the cage but I wasn't sure it would be worth cutting it out... considering all the roots that could possibly be damaged in the removal.... the plant has obviously decided to ignore it lol.... The yellowing could have been the plant saying "re‐pot me!!!" because of the lack of dirt, the plant isn't keeping water for as long as it needs to drink before the next watering... It should be fine now, but if you see the tips continuing to turn brown, that could just be that your humidity isn't high enough. Good Luck! Here is my baby, full of babies lol
