hooks: Try using plain rubbing alcohol (or 409 or Fantastik, or their generic equivalent) on the plant (Spritz it on the leaves and stems). Make sure to water the plant thoroughly as the treatment is slightly drying to the plant, (and thoroughly drying to many insects). It works on ants, and spider mites, mealy bugs etc - so it may work on spiders too. Most 'bug sprays' available for home use are made using pyrethrins - which occur in, or are derived from chemicals that occur in, chrysanthemums, and do not contain active 'heavy chemicals' per se [by which I'm assuming that you mean they are made somehow only from a barrel of 'heavy' crude oil]. Please check out the article on natural carcinogens you are exposed to in a holiday dinner below. The main point is: just because it's manmade doesn't mean it's toxic, and just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safe. Here is a link that might be useful: Carcinogens in a Holiday Dinner

Shenanigans_91, You have a 'Bonnie' Spider Plant, which is essentially the curly version to a regular spider plant (curly leaves). The "stems" that the babies grow on are not straight like the regular spider plants, so don't worry. I have an all green 'Bonnie' and mine are looping all over the place, I think but only a couple are straight. Planto

I had them once on a ever green and before I notice a 2 ft area was dead. I asked a nursery man about it and he said you can't see spider mites. He said to put a white sheet of paper under the area and shake the plant, then rub your fingers across the paper. If there are blood smears they are spider mites.

The rhizome contains genetic information that will duplicate the parent plant. when you take a leaf cutting, the whole reproductive process changes. Just one cell from either I, II, or III will begin the rooting process but that one cell only contains the genetic material coding for whichever layer it comes from. The rhizome contains all of the genetic information from the parent, instead of having to start from scratch at just one type of cell. many African Violets are this way, chimeras. You can reproduce the plant only if you have a full crown (with all the genetic information, including the mutation) but if you take a leaf and try to propagate a new plant, it will not be true to the parent and will lose some of that genetic coding along the way. The cells in the leaves are very simple. They are to do one thing, and one thing only. Now, the cells in the dormant buds contain a different type of cell, one with much more potential than just a leaf cell. imagine it as if the dormant buds are similar to human stem cells, they can grow into almost any type of organ or tissue. Humans can't regenerate limbs (or bodies) so that example has to stop there lol. But with starfish (sea stars!), they can grow a limb back, but if a limb is ripped off, unless it has part of that central core (body), then the arm cells don't have enough genetic information to create a new body. The difference is the TYPE of cell used in starting the plant, whether it's a "stem cell" that holds information for the whole plant or just a leaf cell that is specialized and only holds the genetic information for its layer of leaf cells. That's probably going to be really confusing. It was kind of all over the natural world lol. I love biology though, so I enjoy our conversations!