A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Spiders

HI ALL

A question, I am in Wi,and I have never had so many spiders on my deck,making webs on newly planted plants? Not sure what to do???
Any tips would be helpful.not sure if it is the spiders or ants but the plants are buggy? I have heard soapy water helps,however, I do not want to hurt/harm birds or any animals.
Thank You
Angie

And the problem is....? I like to have spiders around to kill the nasty other bugs that plague my plants. If you can I would try to find out what types of spiders you have before I go off killing critters. You may some truly beneficial spiders on your deck and Charlotte may be one of them. (Charlottes Web)

I would never hurt harm animals....Humane society and animal rescue voulenter 20 years.Thats why i was asking as I stated did not want to harm anything.
I was asking if anyone knew of why there would be so many,more than i saw so early. and i was not sure if it was the spiders or ants making the plants look so buggy.
Thanks for your reply
Good day

There must Be a lot of good spider grub there ... I am just assuming that the spiders will make the bugs lunch... I would however make sure what type of spider it was though to make sure you are not housing something that could hurt you or other family members.. widows ..violin..

spring Feaver

Thanks:-) I will try to figure out the spider types
That is a good point, Thanks again, off to investigate.

No problem!! I know I am totally creeped out by spiders after I was bitten by a Recluse... I am really not thrilled by them! But I know there are bennificial ones in my yard.. I just stay away till the rent a new area!

I can't remember where but there is suppose to be some place you can take them for ID??

Rita, I believe that if you take spiders into your County Extension office, they will help identify them. (Maybe try the Google image search.... it might save you a trip to town.)

You say that you were bitten by a Brown Recluse... what happened? (I mean, what kinds of symptoms did you have? It's supposed to be awful!)

My daughter showed me a spider bite on her arm yesterday, that she is saying was probably a Brown Recluse because it has left a red welt that itches like crazy. I told her that I think if it were a Recluse bite, she'd probably have gone to E.R. by now... but I really don't know what I'm talking about; I thought I'd heard that you get real sick or something.

Patty .. It swelled instantly! After about 20 mins it looked like a chicken pock...I was stuck in the willy wackers By the Deschuttes River and happened to have a small doctors office there that they gave me some strong antibiotics..
But the swelling continued to the size of a 50cent peice.. then the venom had eaten through the skin, to where I had a big open sore on my leg thank goodness it was there.. so it did not have a good source of the venom to pass further!
took a long time to heal and I still have a scar!

SpringFeaver
You know, I am really glad I posted this, and after reading the posts, I am going to check out info even more. I have this red spot on my leg for a few days and I thought maybe I just bumped it, but it looks like a blister and is getting bigger. maybe a spider bite? Thanks again, so much useful info here..
Really appreciate it.
Angie

I was tagged by a brown recluse on my foot, the other night in bed. I am sure it was one, as I had killed the critter. That bite stung like someone holding a lit cigar against the skin and my whole body flushed from it! Not all brown recluse bites are as bad as the worst case scenarios that you see in the news with the flesh rotting away.
Leslie showed me something that sounded crazy but worked very, very well. She rubbed it with stick deodorant and within minutes the major amount of pain went away. It remained sore and tight for a couple of days but that was the worst of it.

Woa!

I know that we have Brown Recluse here, as well as Black Widows. I see Black Widows quite often, & they're actually very pretty creatures, with their waxy, deep black color & vivid scarlet marking!
(I DO kill them, even if they ARE part of the "food chain", because I know that their bite can pretty darned viscious. I figure that some less dangerous spider out there will just have more to eat if I help eliminate its competition ...& I'm not ready to believe that wiping Black Widows out will upset the balance of nature & knock us out of orbit, or anything!)

"That bite stung like someone holding a lit cigar against the skin and my whole body flushed from it!"
I remember that feeling!! Woke from a nap! Later found out the area was infested with them and the widows... I do not feel bad for killing spiders.. especially when I am being bit! My grandfather did not get off so easy though he got bit in the face right near the cheek bone.. it left the worst scar I have seen from a spider!
and he lost some of his vision as well!!
Having them outside is one thing but in you home no way!! (thank goodness for bug bombs!)

Good Morning

I talked with a neighbor across the creek last night who is a nurse,she looked at it and said it did not look like a spider bite to her,she said it looked like it was a blister from something like a plant or product? that irritated and broke the skin.
( I think I should have showed her before she had 2 glasses of wine;)hehehe

she could not be sure, But, several days ago,I was cleaning up the creek that runs along the property and it is a bit mucky, did get legs wet.

I need to be a bit more careful,but will keep an eye on it,keep it clean...hey the deoderant thing is very nifty!
Thanks for your thoughts and input on this.
Enjoy your day

WE just bought our first place a few months ago and it is INFESTED with spiders. It is a trailer that was unoccupied for over a year.

So far, no poisonous ones - just ordinary old garden spideys. We basically let them be. Since they are predators, I figure I don't want to be overrun be the BAZZILLIONS of bugs that must be supporting all these predators.

They are VERY useful indicators of where bugs are getting into your house. They set up shop where the munchies are. We're basically allowing them to guide us in our weatherproofing! When they pack up and leave a particular spot - we know we effectively plugged the hole!

If you have a ridiculous number of spiders this year, it's probably BECAUSE your garden is "buggy". Same thing happened here a couple of years ago with aphids. Aphids were EVERYWHERE then BOOM an equally ridiculous number of Ladybugs.

I think if you work on getting rid of the bugs, the spiders will simply leave.


AT

Oh wow!
Now that I've read these posts about spiders I am so glad that I don't live in a spider infested area. I live on the outskirts of a small suburban community, but still have relatively few bugs.
I am so freaked out by spiders it's not funny. If I think there is a spider crawling on me I totally FLIP! I've even cried because of spiders before.

I think I'm going to Google spiders to see if I can find a web page for what kinds of spiders are in what areas of the continent/world. I'll let you know what I come up with.

I have found Black Widows twice up under my pond's waterfall. Scared the beejeebers out of me. Now some kind of weird frog has taken to hiding out there. I am hoping he keeps the creepy crawlies away...

I had a friend that was bitten by a brown recluse last year on her hiney. She sat in a patio chair with cushions and the little devil was sitting there first. She ended up in the hospital over it...

Dianna

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="COMIC SANS MS, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="3" face="COMIC SANS MS, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by BeckyB:
<strong>
I am so freaked out by spiders it's not funny. If I think there is a spider crawling on me I totally FLIP! I've even cried because of spiders before.


AT

Wow...come here little spider

I don't NEEED money if that's what it takes, thankyou!

I've got a problem!
We moved to this house a year ago and the many lovely boxwood bushes were swarming with spider webs. I have left them alone to date, even enduring remarks by people I'd met in our small town (Oh yes, you live in that house with the huge circular drive and ALL THOSE SPIDER WEBS in the bushes!!) Anyway, our daughter is coming in two weeks, we're hosting her wedding and will have ALL of our relatives here, most of whom have never seen our new place. Is there a way to get rid of the spider webs at least for the short term? They really DO look creepy! I am not even sure what sort of spiders are in the bushes, but they are funnel shaped webs leading into the bush, some of them are massive...and they seem to stay there year round. I would love to get rid of the spider webs so people will stop thinking we are relatives of The Adaams Family!

just take the webs out the night before the wedding...use a broom just to be on the safe side (they're probably just the ordinary run-of-the-mill spiders tho).

do it as late in the evening as you can...the spiders will immediately start creating new ones. they shouldn't have enough time for them to be to massive tho. and you can always do a walk by with the broom in the morning too.

have fun at the wedding!!

I don't know if this response is too late or not..I actually just came home from attending a wedding myself!

My sweetie and I recently had problems with a raccoon living under our trailer! Many sources told us to toss lots of mothballs under the trailer. Well, it didn't work (and our trailer STILL smells like mothballs because we haven't been able to retrieve them all!), BUT we did notice that all the spiders disappeared. They're coming back now that the mothballs are almost "run out", but we were spider-free for awhile there.

You might try hanging old socks filled with mothballs in the bushes, then using cheap plastic painter's tarps from the hardware store to "tent" the bushes. Apparently naturallists routinely use a mothball in a jar to kill insect specimens with damaging them. The socks would make it easy to retrieve the moth balls the day before the wedding to allow the smell to disappate and the brooming out of the webs would hopefully last a little longer as the spiders would all be dead.


AT