So it is! And upon further investigation I now know that it's common to mistake pothos for philodendron. They do look very similar at a glance. Thank you :)

Hi & welcome to Gardenweb. Your pic: In decades of keeping spider plants, I've learned that the huge roots fill up about any size pot quickly and about 2 years is the longest one can go before the crowded roots cause a decline in health. So I usually put many in a single pot because I just prefer that type of appearance and because each individual plant only makes a few flower stalks, if more than one. I like for there to be a LOT of stalks which means lots of babies hanging from a single pot. A single plant will fill up the pot with roots about as fast as a group of 3-5. Since I know I'll be repotting (remove all large tubers and long roots, put back in same pot with fresh soil) every year, I like for them to look full "from the beginning." Spider plant is not terribly fussy, so your options are numerous with this plant. Just depends on how you want to do it. If you decide to leave them crowded, just be on the lookout for signs that the roots have become too crowded and be ready to repot. (Wilting often, brown leaf tips, fading colors.) Whatever you'd like to do, it's probably a good idea to remove the pot to see what's going on in there. Depending on how long ago the pot was put together, there could be crowded roots already. The plants look good, but if you look now, you'll know what has changed when you look again in the future. That looks like one of those hanging pots with a raised drain hole in the middle, about 1/2" above the true bottom of the pot. Those pots can be a death sentence to plants that can get root rot from sitting in undrained water, no matter how "good" the "soil" might be. I use a pruner to snip 2-3 holes at the bottom of these pots. It's easy to take a triangular chunk out of the bottom near the drainhole or around the outside of the bottom. I always take the plastic riser out of these pots too. No need to waste that potential root space. There's a house plant forum on here also. Come on over there if you have any further house plant questions, or just to read more spider plant or other discussions. You didn't ask, but I'm concerned about your cactus. It looks like its' pot is full of a lot of peat. Not always easy to tell that kind of thing from a pic, though...

Susan - Tiffany is pointing you in the right direction with her comments pertaining to root health. You simply can't hope for a healthy plant unless you can provide an environment conducive to a healthy root system; and even if you could make every other cultural factor that influences your plant perfect, it wouldn't make up for or counteract the limitations imposed by a sick roots. Using rocks as a drainage layer can be counter-productive or it can be helpful, depending on what's going on in the bottom of the pot. Used as a drainage layer, they are almost certainly counter-productive. Used as ballast, they can range from somewhat helpful to very helpful, depending on how they are situated in the pot. I'll try to illustrate with a little science. In the picture above, PWT means perched water table. Perched water is water the soil holds so tightly, it won't drain from the pot by the force of gravity alone. Most commercially prepared soils hold from 3-6" of perched water, meaning that if you water fully, until water is exiting the drain hole, after the pot stops draining, the bottom of the pot is fully saturated with water. Since water and nutrient uptake is energy driven and requires oxygen, you can easily imagine what effect the lack of oxygen has on root function. If you add a "drainage layer" water simply perches in the soil above the drainage layer (see the middle picture). Obviously, that's worse than the first picture because there is considerably less 'healthy' soil for the roots to use in the middle pic than in the first pic. Using ballast correctly reduces the amount of soil that the PWT can occupy. There is less soggy soil, so less excess water in the picture with ballast than in either picture, so even more ballast would be helpful. The problem is, the ballast doesn't fix the soil that causes the excess water to be retained. It just uses physics to reduce the amount of excess water the soil CAN hold. Are you still with me? What we CAN do, if you're up for it, is put together a strategy that will help you rid your planting of SOME of the limitations causing the problems that are related to water retention. The links that Tiffany left are good primers and can provide something of a framework of knowledge that can be expanded upon. With a little effort, you can very quickly learn to avoid all the most common pitfalls that bring people here, looking for help. I don't want to assume anything, so I'll keep an eye out for a reply and what you think of what I said. Thanks for the referral (thread you linked to), Tiff. ;-) I DO notice when you do that, and want you to know I appreciate it. Al

If it is 2 plants very close together, it may be hard to tell just by looking at what is above the surface. A heart-leaf Philo leaf does not have a geniculum on the petiole. Anthurium leaf would have that, which allows the leaf to swivel easily. Heart-leaf Philo petiole is round in cross-section, Anthurium is caniculate. H-l P is a vine, Anth. leaves all arise from a central point. This link has good pics of Anth. anatomy, though not the same species that is usually used for a group pot. http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Anthurium%20cubense%20pc.html You should be able to decide by finding or not finding these features. Generally, Anth. leaves would be significantly larger than h-l P leaves.