Table of Contents
Introduction
The Curly Spider Plant is a quick-growing rosette-shaped plant, that is usually banded with white in the Summer. The botanical name is Chlorophytum Comosum, and it is a curly version of the spider plant.
The plant has stems up to 60cm long, and these carry small white flowers, the curly spider plant is a perennial.
It is an easy plant to grow both outside and inside, it likes a warm climate, either warm moist or warm dry doesn’t matter it is easy to grow in both places, and we will talk a bit about how to get the best out of your plant.
How to Care for your Curly Spider Plant
During the warm weather, your plant will grow quite quickly, and the leaves will become long and strap-like.
Light Requirements
Plant at any time of the year, not in direct sunlight. If indoors place the pot in a position of filtered light.
Temperature Requirements
This plant will thrive in a warm climate and will grow quickly. it will reach a height of about 50cm and a spread of 1 meter.
Soil Requirements
Outside the soil should be well-drained. Indoors, use a good potting mix that will last a couple of years.
Humidity Requirements
Your plant will do well outside in both humid and dry conditions, as long as there are no frosts. Inside, it would do well in a bathroom.
How to Water your Curly Spider Plant
If outside water the plant only when it is dry, the roots store water, giving it the capacity to survive without frequent watering. Inside water well weekly.
How to Fertilize your Plant
If your plant is outdoors, use a liquid fertilizer every year in Spring. If indoors fertilize annually in Autumn or Spring, ( Osmocote or similar fertilizer indoors)
What Does Your Curly Spider Plant Require?
Once your plant is established, it will thrive in direct sunlight outside, and the sun will ensure that the plant achieves better variegation and tighter curls. The green part of your plant will green up following the annual fertilizing, and it will appear in optimal health.
Inside, make sure that your house plant gets sufficient light, and if you can, put it outside in Summer for a short time. This is a good plant for children to start gardening with, as it is both hardy and interesting.
The Curly Spider Plant is also non-toxic to cats and dogs, which is comforting when you are a pet owner.
Extra Tips for Curly Spider Plants
Your plant grows from a tuber or a fleshy root and each plant can produce multiple tubers, enabling quick growing.
- Your plant will look really pretty in a hanging basket, curling down the side, get a basket lined with bark to keep moisture in.
- Hang a couple of baskets in your kitchen, as they do help to purify the air.
- Establish a vertical garden on an outside wall, the wall will be softened by the Curly Spider Plant trailing down.
- The plant will often look at its best in Spring when the little white flowers appear.
- Where the growing conditions are perfect your plant may take over the garden, so keep it in a confined area.
- Ideal plant if you don’t have time for gardening.
Pests and Diseases of Curly Spider Plants
- Slugs and Snails will attack your plant, especially after rain. To keep them away, mulch around the plant with coffee grounds.
- In extremely hot weather, the leaves can burn off, so if out in the garden in summer filtered light is better for the plant.
- If it does burn off, it is not dead, cut it back and it will regrow.
Pruning
- Remove some of the arching stems and plantlets to keep the Curly Spider Plant under control. This is best done in Autumn before the weather gets cold.
- Any dead bits of the plant should be cut away.
Propagation
- Your curly spider plant is very easy to grow. Look at the arching flower stem, and at the end of the stem, you will see small plants hanging at the end near the edge of the pot. Cut these off and put two or three in a glass of water on a window sill. They should start to grow within a few days, and then you can pot them in a good potting mix.
- Also being a tuber, you can separate out some of the roots for planting in potting mix.
Creating a Tropical Garden using a Curly Spider Plant
Most of us have an unrewarding patch in our gardens where nothing seems to grow well. As long as the area gets some sunlight, this is the ideal spot for your Curly Spider Plant. Prepare the earth with some good soil mix and make sure that it is weed-free.
When the earth is ready, best done in spring plant out 6-10 curly spider plants. Plant them fairly close together about 6 inches apart. When planted water them in well and wait.
Within about 6 weeks, fertilize them and by now they will be covering the earth like a curly ground cover ( only higher). It creates a lush varying tropical look, and everyone will admire it.
Advantages of Planting Curly Spider Plant
- Planting like this will keep the weeds away.
- Very low maintenance
- Low watering needs
- Your garden will always look green and is easier to care for than a lawn.
- When you get too many, you can put some into pots for friends.
- When plants are grouped together, they are less likely to attract pests.
Conclusion
This is a very adaptable plant that will grow in a range of conditions. The plant needs so little attention, that in the right conditions will grow in the wild.
In some places it does grow wild, creating a lovely green curly cover in gulleys and bush tracks. The curly spider plant is a very common indoor plant,
and if you go to your nursery or plant store it is relatively inexpensive to buy. So take a couple of plants home and get started today.
Photo by Alberto Nicoletta on Unsplash
