My favorite plant so far in my garden is my yucca plant. This plant is usually grown in warmer climates (zone 8 and above), but can withstand harsh winters, some frost and even dry spells. Yuccas are perennial plants known by their spiky look and their green color. There are approximately 50 known species of yucca. Some of them bear fruit and flowers (however, mine do not). Yuccas require direct sunlight and are slow growing. Definitely a great ornamental plant to add to your garden.
All of my life I have had arachnophobia. At this point in my life, I never thought I’d love gardening so much. So at some point this summer, I came to a cross road: Either stay in the house and avoid spiders at all cost or learn to respect them and move past my fear of them. For the most part I have done well. Of course this week I found this monster in my side yard several weeks ago and could have easily stepped back into my old way of avoiding them altogether.
What I have learned is that spiders are very very beneficial to the garden. There are thousands of species of spiders and for the most part, they are very shy, unaggressive and usually non-poisonous. Spiders help control the insect population and keep pests from devouring your garden. The banana spider (above) unfortunately eats both beneficial bugs as well as pests. I haven’t decided whether I plan to let it stay around, but I just noticed there are 2 more around the yard and they all have an egg sack the size of regular chicken eggs! Needless to say, I was able to photograph it without feeling sick on my stomach from fear and anxiety.
The banana spider does bite; however, their bites only cause mild irritation in humans. Banana spiders are actually afraid of cockroaches; however, they aid in keeping mosquitoes, wasps, flies and beetle populations low. Their webs are some of the strongest webs in the world, some have webs tougher than Kevlar, the material used to make bulletproof vests. The male banana spider is completely different and much smaller than the female spider. When a male is so much different than the female to a point where they do not look like the same species it is known as sexual dimorphism.
Banana spiders molt several times. On the last molt, she is fertile for only 48 hours. Needless to say, the male moves in and makes a special noise (so she knows not to eat him, but to mate with him). After she is inseminated she spins two large egg sacs containing hundreds of eggs (I’m sorry, but I think mine have thousands of eggs inside!). Unlike the tarantula, the female spider doesn’t devour her man like a happy meal. The male moves about two inches up above her on the web and guards her and the sac until they both die (I guess chivalry is still existent in the spider world).
What’s really fascinating about banana spiders is their webs. They are absolutely gorgeous. The webs have a sticky substance on it that helps bugs to become entrapped. They can spin webs up to 3 feet wide! They are truly cool to watch (from a distance) although I’m not sure how long they plan to be my roommates.
We all hate them. They come out in early spring and by early summer you are ready to break out a blow torch! It only takes 1 day outside without repellant and you will spend the next 5-7 days in misery. Besides carrying diseases like malaria and yellow fever, mosquitoes are the ultimate downside and inconvenience of gardening. I haven’t quite mastered the art of repelling them yet and most of the time I come in looking like someone rolled me down a hill with no grass, but I am getting better at keeping it down to 1 bite a week in the summer. I am not the type to remember to spray repellant on myself every time I go outside and DEET, a chemical found in mosquito repellant, is not good for your skin or for children. So I have found a few non-chemical things, that work for me:
).Some other products include garlic powder mixed with water spray, skin so soft spray, vicks vapor rub, listerine or peppermint extract/oil,. Now if you are having a problem with the quantity of mosquitos at your home and you want to reduce the number of mosquitoes overall, you can try a few of these tips:
If you must have chemicals, use repellants that do not require you to spray it directly on your body and repellants that do not use DEET. A few things you can do: