It’s the end of October, and most gardeners I know are scrambling to get gardens put to bed before the snow flies. Insects are doing the same thing, seeking out warm, protected places to live through the winter.
Our friendly neighborhood garden spiders are now seeking shelter in wood piles, holes in the ground or tree bark, leaf litter and unfortunately, our houses and outbuildings. They appreciate a warm house just like we do and they don’t want anything to do with us as they hide.
There are 37,000 known species of spiders worldwide with 3,000 of them found in North America. In the Inland Northwest, we have several very common spiders that share our gardens.
The orb-weaving spider is our most familiar garden spider. We don’t often see the spider itself, but we do see their beautiful wheel-shaped webs covered with morning dew backlit by the sun. Think of Charlotte the spider in “Charlotte’s Web.”
The sheetweb spider builds an irregular sheet of webbing around plants and other objects in the garden and beyond. The spider itself tends to drop quickly to the ground when disturbed so we don’t see it often.
Crab spiders resemble their namesake and are very colorful. They prefer plant blossoms where their coloring allows them to blend in and pounce on unsuspecting bugs.
Then there are the funnel-web builders. This large group of spiders builds their webs in dark, moist areas such as dark corners of gardens, sheds and wood piles. Their webs have two large openings that decrease in size towards the middle. The spider hides near one of the openings and waits for a victim to disturb the web before pouncing.
The only truly dangerous spider we have in the region is the western black widow, Latrodoctus hesperus. Female western black widows are about 1 ½ inches in diameter and velvety black with the characteristic red hourglass on the underside of the abdomen. They are shy and prefer to live around undisturbed wood piles, old lumber, dry crawl spaces, outbuildings, rock piles or bales of hay far away from activity.
Unfortunately, sometimes even a harmless spider can bite if they feel threatened or trapped. They prefer to run first. If their hiding place happens to be a piece of clothing, bed linens or the woodpile, it is easy for them to feel threatened when they get squeezed as you put on clothes, get into bed or pick up an armload of wood. As a result, they bite.
In fact, the most common spider bite is on the insides of the forearms where that armload of firewood meets bare flesh. If you are bitten, clean the bite with water and soap and apply an antiseptic ointment and check with your doctor for further care.
So, this winter as you rummage through darker spaces of your house, watch for them and give them some room. They may startle you but remember they are the good guys just trying to stay warm.
Comments are closed.