Question
Darlene,
Thanks soooo much for responding sp promptly! This sounds silly, but how do I start baby plants? Should I take the old stems with the existing roots and put them in the sun to hope that they grow? I'm a little confused and not the best at taking care if plants. Lord knows I try!!! All your help is much appreciated. Thankyou.

         Jen Swift
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Followup To

Question -
Darlene,

Hi there. I have a spider plant that is not doing very well to say the least! I repotted it earlier this summer and since then it has been in shock. It had 3 individual stalks or stems. Two have since died and the final and third one just became extremely limp and fell over. I cut it low at the base and have put it in a tall skinny glass near a window. I also put a little bit of water in the bottom of the glass. Not sure if it was the right thing to do or not! I was hoping this would make it reroot. This plant was doing great before I repotted it. I am so upset about it, because it was my Mom's plant she had given me. She has passed away since then and I would feel awful if this plant doesn't make it! Help, please!!!!

         Thank you

Answer -
Jennifer,

You are doing everything you can, I cannot think of any other advise to give you. Did your mother possibly give starts of her plant to any aunts or friends or neighbors that you could possibly get some babies from?

You should never ever repot a spider plant. They love to be rootbound and will stay much healthier that way. I learned that the hard way when I repotted one about 20 years ago and it took 5 years for it to recuperate. The best thing is to take babies off an old rootbound plant and firmly press them into a fresh hanging basket of soil, water it and hang it in a sunny location. The more sun the better. New plants are easy to start from babies. Put 6-10 babies in each pot. Good luck.

Darlene

Answer
Jen,

You can try to  take the old stems with the existing roots and put them in the sun and hope they grow but probably they will not. A healthy spider plant produces arms with babies at the ends of the arms every fall. You can remove those babies and root them as I directed earlier. Go to this site and you will see pictures of spider plants with babies:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=spider%20plant&sa=N&tab=wi

If you know someone else that your mother gave spider plants to you can contack them about getting babies from their plant and you can start a new plant from your mother.

If not I suggest that you buy a new spider plant and grow it in memory of your mother, I'm sure she would approve. Good luck.

Darlene