I cannot say that I am particularly fond of spiders, but am fascinated by their webs. It is always a mystery to me how spiders can span large distances to create their webs. Long lines are often encountered at face level on autumn mornings. It is done by the spider emitting a continuous stream of fine filament from its rear glands, if the spider is above ground this slender line is so light that the slightest movement of air will waft the filament until it attaches itself to another object some distance away. Once this first line is fixed the spider traverses it and at some point will, using the same technique descend to the ground making another line, and new anchor points, this is the foundation of the web structure.
Most of the time we don't see the webs in the garden, but when we get heavy dew or frosts these webs will display often very spectacularly. Of the 100 or so species of spider found in this country, most are relatively harmless, and are generally good for the garden.
Most of the time we don't see the webs in the garden, but when we get heavy dew or frosts these webs will display often very spectacularly. Of the 100 or so species of spider found in this country, most are relatively harmless, and are generally good for the garden.
Other things in the garden also look so different with morning dew like this seed head of Clematis tangutica. Talking about dew, I came across an ancient dew pond on top of a chalk hill in Wiltshire some years ago. These dew ponds were created for watering sheep and cattle and would often be still full in mid summer when other ponds in the valleys had dried out.