We always had these in the garden when I was young and we called them Spider Plants. It’s easy to see how they earned that name with the tendrils that are part of the flower heads.
It was only much later that I learned of the green hanging house plants also called the “spider plant.’
Cleome is an annual in our area. Most are pink or pink and white but there are also solid white, purple and combinations of these colors.
They are tall and graceful, usually growing 3-4’ although there are dwarf varieties and some plants that just get taller. They make a great background plant in a garden. They like full sun to part share but they don’t like wet feet so keep them in a well-drained area. Once established, they are drought-tolerant.
The heirloom varieties have a light scent whereas developed cultivars usually have no scent and produce sterile seeds. They attract beneficial insects.
Flowers come out in June and continue until frost kills them. They produce long, thin seed pods that will split open as they dry.
Plant them by putting the seed on the ground since they don’t transplant well. They are considered self-seeding annuals since they will come back year after year if you let them go to seed.