Gardening is so much fun, and children find it something they enjoy doing as well. Watching a plant grow from a seed they planted is exciting.
We use the raised bed method with companion flowers to help keep bad insects away and draw the pollinators like honey bees and butterflies. Our garden had many vegetables this year: Tomatoes of various types, peas, bush beans, onions, carrots, lettuce, beets, yellow squash, Jalapeños peppers, Crenshaw melons and strawberries. This photo shows our raised beds with yellow squash, pepper and in the back are some beets.
Yesterday, I was walking past one of our big Tiger Lilly plants and low and behold, what did I spy? It was a very large Yellow Garden spider with a huge beautifully formed web.
Yellow Garden spiders are also called by a variety of other names like zigzag spiders and zipper spiders because they spin a zigzag pattern near the center of their web. They are not poisonous and are helpful to the garden eating aphids, mosquitoes, gnats and other insects. The formal definition is:
Argiope aurantia is a showy spider usually noticed in late summer. It has several common names: black-and-yellow argiope, black and yellow garden spider, corn spider, golden garden spider; golden orb-weaver, writing spider, yellow garden argiope, yellow garden orb-weaver, and zipper spider.
Here is a photo of him in his web taken September 3, 2023. When I got close, he dropped his head down a little, but you can still see him in his web. Notice how he put that zigzag design in his web.
Quite a beauty isn't he? Then the next day, I returned to check on this spider and low and behold, he had a very large fly of some sort in his web. I think it was bigger that he was. A nice tasty meal for quite some time. If you look really closely, you will be able to see the outline of the fly's wings all wrapped up in the web.
I think this beautiful spider needs a name. Can you think of a good name for such a beautiful, harmless and helpful garden visitor?
Note: Audrey, this is for you!