# How long do houseplants (like a spider plant) live if cared for properly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 8, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646 "2013-10-08T03:20:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/1 "2013-10-08T03:20:59Z")
I’ve got [spider plant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorophytum_comosum) I’ve had for several years and it seems to growing nicely. At what point would a plant like this get old and die? Wiki does not say. Years? Decades? Centuries? ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/2 "2013-10-08T04:02:04Z")
I don’t have a nice factual cite for you. I do know my mom has one that’s older than me (I’m 43). She’s re-potted it twice, possibly split it up one of those times, and has given away and added the rooted “babies” to the pot. Mostly she just prunes them when they start heading towards the floor. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/3 "2013-10-08T13:10:43Z")
A friend has a jade plant that was started when her mother picked up a leaf from a trash can in a bus station in Rochester, took home (probably illegally) and planted. It is at least 50 years old and shows no sign of senescence. Of course, it has to be trimmed regularly. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/4 "2013-10-08T13:15:44Z")
I bought my oldest spider plant in 1973. It’s the ancestor of many plants owned by me and others. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/5 "2013-10-08T13:51:36Z")
Perennial plants that reproduce vegetatively are effectively immortal - they can die from disease, or they may die from mechanical injury if some external force destroys them - or if they grow so big that they collapse, but apart from that, they can live forever (although the question as to whether a herbaceous perennial plant is ‘the same plant’ over a long span of time is a philosophical one). ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/6 "2013-10-08T16:10:05Z")
Spider plants appear to be immortal even if you don’t care for them properly. I have one that’s at least 20 years old and when I moved to my current house, I didn’t really have a place to hang it or any interest in finding a place. So I just put it on a shelf sort of near a window and watered it three or four times a year. It wasn’t \* thriving \* exactly, but it remained essentially unchanged for 10 years. This summer I felt sorry for it so I brought it outside to the porch and it seems pretty happy (for a plant). ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/7 "2013-10-08T16:44:02Z")
I have an ivy that I’ve had for 25 years now that was old and ratty when my then-roommate (who had inherited it from someone else) left it behind. I just hack it down to the root ball every 7-8 years, hack off the bound up roots on the outside of the pot, then put it back in the same pot with about 50% new soil. Comes roaring right back every time. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/8 "2013-10-08T16:47:01Z")
I have a philodendron that was given to my family by an aunt as a move-in present that is now over 54 years old. I think spider plants are even less fussy about poor maintenance. My current champ is about 23 years old and has taken a lot of abuse. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/9 "2013-10-08T17:06:39Z")
Spider plants are all clones anyway. Root a few of the babies as backups and it doesn’t matter. But yeah, anecdotally I can say a healthy mother spider plant can live decades. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/10 "2013-10-09T02:50:10Z")
It’s my understanding that we age because the telomeres, the things at the end of our DNA that keep the strands from unraveling, get shorter with each cell division, and then… something. If that’s even close to right then it would seem that some plants have a very different DNA structure than we do. ---
**Author:** ![barnhardt999](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@barnhardt999](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barnhardt999)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/11 "2013-10-09T03:16:33Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Spider plants are all clones anyway. Root a few of the babies as backups and it doesn’t matter. > But yeah, anecdotally I can say a healthy mother spider plant can live decades. If you count clones the answer is probably forever. For example, most of the good fig varieties have probably been around 1000’s of years without sexual reproduction. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/12 "2013-10-09T07:09:47Z")
> [@El\_Zagna](#): > > It’s my understanding that we age because the telomeres, the things at the end of our DNA that keep the strands from unraveling, get shorter with each cell division, and then… something. If that’s even close to right then it would seem that some plants have a very different DNA structure than we do. I believe it’s just that they (and some other ‘immortal’ organisms) have a mechanism that maintains the telomeres. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-do-houseplants-like-a-spider-plant-live-if-cared-for-properly/670646/13 "2013-10-09T12:46:24Z")
[Clonal growth](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1237973/Worlds-oldest-plant-13-000-year-old-oak-survives-cloning-itself.html) allows for some really old plants. By the way, if your house or outdoor perennials aren’t performing, threats are useful. I’ve told them “Bloom or die” and it often works.