RE:Spiders

I am going to protest the objections to my comments regarding spiders and then say no more about them.
 
True, a half of a million spiders in acres of land will do a number on the insect population, as was proven in Tennessee.  However, I am not talking about acres of land, nor am I talking about half a million spiders.
 
I was talking of a few spiders, and a garden plot.
 
I have a garden plot of irises 25 X 5 feet.  If I have three daddy longleg or some other type of spider, and each spider eats one insect or aphid a day (which happens to be a LOT for a spider) then that takes care of only THREE pests a day. 
 
To me, that is not a significant amount to tolerate having spider webs in my garden.  In addition to that, the webs do a good job at catching leaves and other dibris that float through, leaving the garden look unsightly. 
 
So, my answer is to definitely remove the webs with a broom and shuffle the spiders elsewhere.
 
I do not have iris borers where I live (thank goodness), but can see a definite benefit of spider webs in the garden IF they catch iris borer moths.  I will state one thing, we have horned worm moths out here that deposit eggs on my tomato plants, and to date, not one spider web has caught one of those moths. 
 
I would be interested to hear what others think on this matter.
 
Patrick Orr
Zone 9, Region 15
AIS, TBIS, SDIS
 
 
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