Growing Cleome: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 18, 2026
Cleome, also called spider flower, is one of the taller plants on this site — anywhere from 1.5 to 6 feet depending on the cultivar — and it earns that height by being a serious draw for hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, and predatory insects that help keep pest populations down elsewhere in the garden. The classic species form does have a real downside worth knowing up front: sticky sap, a noticeable odor, and stems armed with small spines.
What to expect
Cleome can be started indoors about 7 weeks before your last frost or direct-sown around 2 weeks after it, seed set a quarter-inch deep. It benefits from a spot sheltered from wind given its height, and it needs relatively little else once established. Plant 1 per square foot and place it where its mature height won’t shade shorter vegetables nearby.
Common problems
Standard-species cleome that gets sticky, smelly, or scratchy to handle isn’t diseased or struggling — that’s just the plant’s natural chemistry, and it’s the main reason thornless hybrids like the one above exist. Leggy, sparse-looking plants usually mean not enough sun or too much crowding; give cleome full sun and its full square foot to keep it bushy rather than stretched.
Where this fits in your garden
Cleome doesn’t have documented companion or antagonist pairings on this site yet — see the full companion guide for cleome for what’s tracked. Its height and pollinator draw make it a strong tall backdrop plant in the Garden Designer, best placed along a north edge so it isn’t shading vegetables that need full sun.
Companion planting guide for Cleome (Spider Flower) · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Either — Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss — Cleome (Spider Flower) tolerates either.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing).
Varieties worth considering
- Senorita Rosalita — A Proven Winners hybrid bred thornless, odorless, and sterile — it doesn't set seed pods, which means longer bloom and no self-seeding, but it must be bought as a transplant since it can't be grown from saved seed. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety — we haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy cleome (spider flower) seeds
Some links on this page go to retailers we may eventually earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a genuine consensus of positive, independent reviews — see the sources cited on each item.
See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing cleome (spider flower)" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video — results vary and aren't vetted by us)