Why Is My Spider Plant Growing Long Stem?

Spider plant grows long stems to produce new offsprings. It’s an indication that the plant is mature and capable of giving birth to new baby plants.

The long wiry stem allows the Spider plant to keep the babies away from the main plant, as they don’t have to compete with the same resources in the soil.

Let’s learn more about this Spider plant behavior in the following guide.

Why Is My Spider Plant Growing Long Stem?

The Spider plant grows long stems because of two reasons.

The first reason is that it needs to produce new babies on these wiry stems. When the plant gets mature, it begins to produce pups on its stems. These pups will continue to be on the stems until they grow completely.

Later, when the roots develop, you can remove these babies and transplant them into small pots.

The second reason is the sunlight. The Spider plant likes to grow in full sunlight.

If you have been growing your plant in indirect sunlight or a shaded place, it might try to reach out for natural light. Its leaves and stems will continue to grow in the direction where the light enters the room. It’s typical behavior from your Spider plant. Hence, you might see the plant growing long stems.

Now, if you don’t want to have long stems on this plant, you can surely do a few things to keep your plant nice and tidy. Check out the following section to know more about it.

5 Things To Do When The Spider Plant Grows Long Stem

Here’s a list of things you can do with the long stem on your Spider plant – 

1. Let It Grow

As I said earlier, the long stem is a sign that your plant is growing well. So, you don’t have to do anything else here.

You can just let the plant be and continue to take care of it as you normally do.

If you only see stems on the plant, you will see new small pups growing on them in a few weeks or months.

You only need to be a bit patient to see the growth in your plant, though.

2. Remove The Stem

In case you don’t want to keep the stems on the plant, you can simply remove them.

Use sharp scissors and cut them off from the base of your plant. It will help maintain the shape of the plant.

Also, if you cut the stem off, you don’t have to think about it a lot.

The Spider plant grows these runners quite often once it reaches a certain age during its lifecycle. So, the plant will continue to produce more runners in the future.

Meanwhile, the other thing you can do here is to have a small or medium pot for the plant. This way, it will not grow too much and will not develop many stems, either.

3. Remove The Spiderettes 

It’s the other thing you can do for your plant.

You can let the stem grow for a while.

It will produce some spiderettes during this time.

Once it produces a few spiderettes, you can remove them from the stem.

Try to propagate these baby plants in new pots.

After that, you can just cut the stem accordingly.

Now, this might seem like a long process, but you will be rewarded with some cute-looking spiderettes for your home garden.

The best thing about it is you can also gift them to your loved ones.

So, do think about it if you want to cut the stem and keep the plant tidy.

4. Keep The Plant In A Bright And Sunny Location

Let’s talk about the sunlight now!

Apart from the plant’s biological process, the other thing that can make it grow longer stems is the lack of sunlight.

When the plant doesn’t receive full sunlight, its runners will become a bit leggy.

To avoid this behavior, you should think of moving the plant to a sunny location.

If the plant is relatively small, you can also keep it on a windowsill.

If it’s a bigger plant, you can hang it near a window or on the balcony.

While doing so, you need to ensure that it receives at least 4-5 hours of natural light every day.

Avoid direct sunlight at any cost, as it can cause leaf burn and droopy leaves issues.

5. Limit The Use Of Fertilizers

The fertilizers can make the plant thrive.

When you add these fertilizers regularly, your Spider plant might get sufficient nutrients to produce more stems on it.

This is an ideal situation for the plant.

Therefore, it will consider producing new babies through the runners.

Now, if you don’t want to see such stems on the plant, you can stop feeding the plant altogether.

With a lack of nutrient supply, the plant will focus on conserving more energy than coming up with new shoots.

Moreover, it will take time to see the effect of this method, but it will surely be worth it.

You will see it producing fewer stems and spiderettes as you stop feeding fertilizers.

So, do give it a try.

In the next section, I have shared a quick guide to root your Spider plant babies.

Let’s check it out below.

How To Root New Spider Plant Babies

Do you want to propagate the Spiderettes?

Rooting is an easy process, and you can manage to grow the babies in the new pots.

Here’s a detailed guide that can help you in this process – 

1. Remove the Spiderettes from the main plant. Make sure you choose the ones that have enough roots. It will be easier to grow such plants in the new pots.
2. Get a few small planters.
3. Add some general-purpose gardening soil mix to the planters. It should be well-draining soil, though. 
4. Place the Spider plant babies into these pots. 
5. Water the plants well. 
6. Keep them in a well-lit place.

Done!

If you follow these guidelines, you should be able to grow these pups into bigger plants without an issue.

Meanwhile, you can also perform the rooting process using the water propagation method.

However, you will need to move the plant to a soil-based pot at some time.

The Spider plant won’t grow in a simply water-based medium, especially if you are not using aquaponics or hydroponics techniques.

Below, I have shared some FAQs related to this topic.

Do take a look at them if you have any similar doubts in your mind.

FAQs