Spiders

[FredFlintstone]

Another one, when bought this house the garden (well, the whole house really) had been neglected for a long time. I cut the jungle right back to neaten i up a little while I'm oing the house up but will eventually be startring again with the garden. However, the lawn is infested with spiders, so much so that if you stand on the lawn you can literally see it moving. There must be at least 50 spider visible at any one time in just one square metre!

I originally thought that keeping the grass nice and short should help because they'll be eaten by birds etc but no, they're still there months later.

I'm not one for upsetting the balance of nature - spiders afterall control flies - but there are far too many.

I've looked at insecticides but they only seem to deal with ants, wasps etc. I wonder of they're not allowed to produce a spider killer.

Anyone any ideas? Anyone had a similar problem and used something that works?

Cheers

Fred

 

[Diyisfun]

Have a read here
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...0&ct=result&cd=1&q=spider+infestation&spell=1
The 3rd one down I know its Canadian but looks good

 

[Srodders]

True, the best way of getting rid of anything is to remove the food source. Ant killer does work on spiders. HOWEVER if you have lots of spiders, you have lots of food for them - get rid of the spiders and you could be over run with their food source.

3 months isn't a long time in the scheme of things - give it a year if you can and the balance should be returned with a normal number of spiders.

BTW now is the time that spiders will be hatching so it is natural to get loads at this time of year - most young will die or be eaten anyway.

 

[FredFlintstone]

Cheers folks.

That link scared the life out of me! Thankfully those brown things don't exist in this country!

There doesn't seem to be an excessive foodsourse for them although I suppose that could be because they're controlling the foodsource quite well!

I have no problem with so many spiders living in my garden but I'd just rather they didn't live in the lawn.

If there is indeed a good foodsource for them, controlling it could be tricky. We're surrounded by farmland so I'd expect an abundance of flies although we don't seem to get many around the house and garden.

Thanks again

Fred

 

[Nerine]

Thats spooky. I have been gardening for donkey's years and have never seen spiders in a lawn. How big are they?

Perhaps they are some weird foreign invader.

 

[Thermo]

never heard of anything like that either. Glad its not mine!

 

[JohnD]

at the right time of the year, the babies climb up grass stalks, put out a stream of web, and wait for the wind to carry them away to a new home. You don't usually notice it. It is to disperse them where a lot have hatched in a small area.

I would have thought keeping it short for a season would cut the numbers.

p.s. Funnelweb spiders like to live in lawns but I bet you haven't got any!