A few years ago, I rescued two small, half-dead airplane plants from my work. Now we have several healthy airplane plants that I propagated because it’s so damn easy. Also called spider plants, these are hardy guys that tolerate a little neglect but really flourish with just a bit of attention. Here’s what I’ve learned from my lil guys:

It took a year or so to get these babies healthy enough to flower and grow pups. A lot of it was slow going, but now my plants make so many babies, I can hardly keep up.

The very first step to propagating spider plants is waiting until the pups are a certain size before removing them and expecting them to grow independent of their mother.

This is the perfect size for propagating. When I first tried this, I didn’t wait long enough for the babies to grow while attached to its mother. They looked something like this:

There was about a 50/50 chance they would survive when I removed them at this size. Wait just a week or two and you will greatly increase its chance for survival.

When it’s about the size of your palm, snip off the pup with a little bit of the original vine still attached. Then put it any container, my favorite are these soda bottles, with the roots barely touching the top of the water.

Put your bottles in a sunny place like a well lit window sill. When the roots begin to strengthen and grow down into the neck of the bottle, you can choose to get a larger container to continue growing in water, or you could plant it in regular potting soil. Be sure to water liberally when planting in soil. My grandmother, the original green thumb, taught me that plants freshly repotted need a lot of water for the first week or so after you move them to soil. This has greatly improved my chances of success.

Be sure to pour out 85% of the water when it gets really murky and fill it up with fresh water. It should be clear with minimal floating debris.

Let me know how it goes if you try!

Maegan