Growing Beach Spider Lilies Indoors

This amazing bulb based plant “beach spider lily” enjoys environments that are downright aquatic and easy to maintain.

These one of a kind flowers will look like spiders crawling across your flower’s shelving unit all summer long, and provide your home with a sweet vanilla scent.

Description

The Beach Spider Lily demands a large growing pot, with even new plants requiring a half gallon pot or larger for their first year of life. This bulb-based plant will let you know when it needs a larger pot by breaking the one that it is currently in.

Pleasing this plant species requires plenty of water and sunlight, as well as a unique soil blend. When cared for correctly, the stems of these plants can grow to almost 2 feet (60 cm) long, and the flower will easily add another foot (30cm) of length when it is fully bloomed. The flower produces a strong vanilla scent.

How it looks: From the bulb, individual shoots grow up from the soil. Each bulb will produce multiple shoots, each with strap-shaped leaves that arch up to 2 feet (60 cm) in length.

White flowers emerge from the ends of these leaves in the middle of summer. The flowers possess a 5-7 inch (14 to 17 cm) long tube, which turns white near the final few inches. A tubular flower opens into a normal-looking white flower. From the edges of the flower, several narrow tepals arch down for several inches around the plant, giving it the spider-like quality.

Flowering: Encouraging Hymenocallis littoralis to bloom for the following year requires a resting period in late August or early September. Once the blooms have fallen off for the season, reduce the offered water and stop fertilizing the plant for at least three weeks. Reduce the amount of light your plant receives during this time as well.

Facts

Spider Lily Plant Care

Common Problems

This plant species experiences very few problems in an average year. One of the most common situations is a lack of flowering or producing small flowers.

If your plant refuses to flower, give it a month long break from fertilizing. Reduce watering to keep the soil damp, and provide it with a darker place than usual.

If your plant still does not want to flower, check that its soil is wet enough, and that it is receiving enough sunlight.

If you take your plant outside at any point in time, you must check it daily. Snails and slugs enjoy eating the leaves of this plant, and must be removed whenever they are present.

Elyssa Goins

Elyssa Goins is an experienced house plant hobbyist who maintains over a hundred plants. She is a gardener, beekeeper, and a proud mother of four.  She is a member of the American Horticultural Society, has a published study in the National Social Science Association, and loves to talk about her love of plants.  For the past twenty years, she’s been all about growing and caring for various fruits, veggies, herbs, livestock, kids, and houseplants. Managing a big garden to feed four growing kids and raising dairy goats has taught her so much about being an excellent plant parent and now is her time to share with you.