Tuesday, September 10, 2024

The female yellow garden spiders in our meadow and flower gardens have each spun their final web and left behind a small brown paper sac of eggs. Each sac hangs by a series of thin threads. (Can a spider egg sac be cute? I think so.) I usually find a sac tucked among a cluster of tall goldenrod stems or other flowers. But not always. This year, one spider built her nest between a fence post and the electric fence charger. Very exposed to predators, weather, and the accidental whisking away by a human. Oops.

Yellow garden spider egg sac

Yellow garden spider egg sacI’ve not opened a sac to estimate the number of eggs. The literature says it could be hundreds or a thousand or more. We are in the climate zone where the spiderlings will hatch soon and either stay in the sac all winter or venture out this fall. Either way they are so susceptible to nature’s chaos.

I found another sac situated between a short fence and our Swiss chard patch. Again, not such a good place. I removed the rabbit-proof fence the other day. I forgot about the spider sac until I saw it hanging from the fence. I carefully moved it to a safer place, for now, among the chard. I’m hoping the warm weather will encourage the spiderlings to choose the move-out-soon option.

My biggest dilemma is what to do about the sacs in the meadow. We cut down and mow the meadow once a year. This helps keep it in wildflowers of goldenrods, asters, ironweed, Joe-pye weed, boneset, and free of unwanted woody plants. But I have to think about the spiderlings. Just as I move carefully through the meadow when the females have their webs strung across my path, I’ll proceed carefully with the fall cutting of plants. I’ll try to leave an uncut cluster around any sac I find.