Rhaphidophora
Rhaphidophora tetrasperma
A climbing stem that outgrows its corner fast enough to need cutting back each spring — and every trimming roots in a jar of water.
- Type
- Houseplant · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Sunlight
- Medium light is tolerated, but a spot near a window in bright indirect light is where it thrives.
- Watering
- Water once the top 2-3 cm of the potting mix feel dry, and ease off in winter.
- Feeding
- Feed monthly with a balanced liquid fertilizer, spring to early autumn.
- Frost tolerant
- No
- Pruning
- Prune in spring to keep it in bounds; the cuttings root readily in a jar of water.
- Mar–Dec Spring Growth
- Jan–Mar Spring Growth
- Plant spacing
- 15.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 15.7 in
- Between rows
- 19.7 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Aerial roots: it does not root in soil at all
- Spread
- 16–24 in across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
In the wild these roots grip bark and take water and air straight from the atmosphere, and they suffocate in potting compost. Bark, moss, or a mount with nothing around it is the right footing; a pot of soil is what kills them.
The habit is Rhaphidophora’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Mealybugs Mealybugs in the leaf joints
- Spider mites Spider mites on the leaf undersides
- Root & crown rot Root rot when the watering is too generous
- Yellow leaves, pointing to overwatering or too little light
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carnea
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) Coccinellidae
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.Hunts Spider mites
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Mealybugs
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.Hunts Spider mites
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Predatory mites Phytoseiulus & AmblyseiusHunts Spider mites
Fast orange mites that hunt spider mites egg-by-egg, and cousins that clear thrips and fungus-gnat larvae. Sold as a biological control for greenhouses; outdoors they follow humidity — mist and mulch, don’t dust with sulfur.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Spider mites
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
Monstera, Pothos, Philodendron, Syngonium
Houseplants, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com