Garden Spider Egg Sac

[tampopo1]

I live in NJ and my daughter and I have enjoyed observing our garden spider this summer. She made an egg sac two days ago and could no longer be found the next day. Is there any way to protect the egg sac through the winter? It’s currently attached to some four o’clocks that we have growing out front. I want to give them the best shot to survive the winter temps.

 

[NMTs]

That's cool - they're fun to watch! The eggs will hatch within about 2-4 weeks. Sometimes the babies will stay in the sac through the winter, but if it's still warm enough when they hatch out, they'll leave the sac and start looking for a warm enough place to survive the winter (usually in some leaf litter, a wood pile, etc.). If you're worried about birds or other predators getting at the sac, you could drape some netting over the area to keep them away. It's not a good idea to put it in a container and bring it inside, because it will be warm enough that you'll have up to 1000 babies in the jar that can't be released outside because it's too cold. Something else you can do is be sure there is enough insulating material nearby for the babies to hide out and stay warm over the winter - you can stack some leaves and sticks near the sac to give them shelter. Picking up leaf litter in the fall is really detrimental for the creatures that depend on that leaf litter to survive the winter, so I always try to wait until later in the spring to clean up fallen leaves.

 

[tampopo1]

Thanks so much! We actually never pick up leaves in the floor for this reason—and to protect the grass/plants. I’ll make sure we don’t cut too many plants back for the winter and put lots of leaves around the area. I think we will use netting also. Thanks!