12

I just bought a spider plant from a store recently. The plant is so aggregated that I can see many stems in a 8cm diameter pot ( 10+ ). I wondered if I can separate them. I tried to separate them from the soil, then I see their roots are so fat like a mini-radish, this is a pic from the internet:

enter image description here

What is this special root called?

This is one of my plant bought from a store:

enter image description here enter image description here

You can see there are so many plants inside a single pot. Can I separate them without hurting them?

Bence Kaulics
  • 1,948
  • 3
  • 15
  • 31
lamwaiman1988
  • 7,600
  • 9
  • 45
  • 76

3 Answers3

9

The roots in the picture seem to be simply fleshy, thick, tuberous roots. The special horizontal root a spider plant also has is called a rhizome.

You can separate them without hurting them. Ideally such division would be done after growth stops (during dormancy) or after flowering. You want to just water well, then lift and pry the root ball apart into separate plants and trim any damaged/dead roots from the divisions, and repot.

Vervious
  • 1,507
  • 1
  • 13
  • 18
1

I take the plant out of the pot, for example, if I have over watered the spider plant. I remove the brown roots and trim the tubers. You can expect new growth from the middle of the plant and some of the older leaves may turn brown and die, but the plant survives.

Sharon
  • 11
  • 1
0

Yes, you can separate the new baby plants from the mother plant with roots. Then plant it in a good potting mix.

MaxBro57
  • 21
  • 5