Expert: C.L. Fornari - 6/17/2007

Question
We planted several pots of impatients within the last two weeks. Today when I watered, the pots in the back of our house were covered (hundreds)with spiders (the common "daddy longleg". The pots in the front had maybe one or two.
Why?   (We are in southern Ohio)

Answer
David,
Maybe some mama spider decided that the back pots were the perfect place to raise her babies!  OR, the back pots had something in or near them that the daddy longlegs like to eat.  OR the back pots were either cooler or warmer, and therefore a better place for the spiders to hang out.

Or, and I'm being silly here, the back pots were the site of a huge spider convention and the guys on the front pots got lost on the way to the meeting...or some combination of the above.

I am thinking up possible reasons, some plausible and some silly, but the truth will probably always be a mystery since we can't speak spider and they don't speak English!  It's just one of those funny things that happen in the garden, I guess!

all the best,
C.L.