Hi! Could you actually elaborate on caring for your dying spider plants? Because we have some that have suddenly started dying and we literally do not know what's what about their care apart from "don't let them get too wet". How do you check for rot? What does rot look like? How do you treat it? How do you go about separating them? Do they have soil preferences? I know the babies get put in water until they get roots..
Basically these get touted as nigh unkillable and now they're dying and I saw your tags implying you know more than me. Please teach me?
Haha, all of my knowledge is from the internet and trial and error, but I'll give you what I can! Disclaimer that this is all just stuff that worked for me/I've seen in a few plants, I don't actually know much about plants generally. If you shoot me some pictures I can also see what I can glean from them.
Don't let them get too wet is definitely true, but I've had success with the approach of watering them reeeeally thoroughly (like I stick them under the faucet and wait for water to come out the drainage holes. Only if the pot has great drainage) and then waiting for them to totally dry out. That said, I'd done that with poor Matilda for ten years and suddenly she got root rot in the last two months, presumably from overwatering. So maybe it's not always the way to go? (or maybe I repotted her with contaminated soil?? too many variables) Maybe it just doesn't work well with a plant that big? She was in a 12" (30cm) diameter pot until a few days ago, and I've never had a plant that big before.
For root rot, you take them out of their pot and untangle the roots as best you can looking for bad ones. Bad ones are brown and squishy or withered, good ones are usually white and firm/"tuberous" (the roots store water well, which is why they like to dry out between waterings). You cut off those roots (and sterilize whatever you're cutting with to keep from passing the rot between plants). I've never dealt with it so bad until literally this weekend, so I can't really attest as to if I've handled it right, but I cut off a huge percentage of the roots and then followed some internet instructions on doing a diluted hydrogen peroxide soak of the remaining roots to kill off the fungus (again, can't promise it's the way to go, but I followed these people's instructions). One of the three parts of her was so bad that I just cut all the roots off and I'm attempting to re-root it in water.
I was lucky that poor Matilda was essentially three plants to start with, so some very slow untangling of the roots let me separate them because they weren't fully attached. I've read that you can literally cut them in half with a real sharp knife, but I've never done it and I assume you want them to already be in good health before doing that kind of damage?
I know very little about soil preferences, I literally grab miracle grow potting mix off of amazon or if I'm feeling real studious I go to my local plant store and say "give me the right dirt" and they do. I think people who are really good at this make their own mixtures with soil and perlite and stuff, but I find prospect really overwhelming so I don't think I'll ever do that unless I commit to a plant that really demands it.
Re: spider plants being impossible to kill, what I've found is that they can definitely develop big problems and die but if you do manage to figure it out they can be resilient enough to be brought back even if pretty far gone. Like, the one I'm trying to re-root in water right now looks like it miiiiight actually be putting some new ones out.
I hope something in there was helpful. Happy to answer more asks but also feel free to dm me if you'd find that preferable!
