I have some cacti and other plants that seem to draw spiders all the time, along with their webs. I generally don't mind the webs since they help control other insects, but didn't know if they had a good, bad of indifferent effect on plants. Any experience?
Another question is whether spider mites, which I know are bad, have any relationship to spiders other than sharing the name.
Mike
Spiders
Actual Spiders should be no touble at all and I get a lot of them on my cacti too. I think they especially like cacti because they are all stem and no leaves. On top of that they have lots of handy attacment points for a spider to connect his web. No spiders harm cacti in any way at all.
Spider mites on the other hand are not spiders at all, but I belive they are arachnids (Would be nice to have Kari for that one too!) Anyway, they are bad news. http://www.cactus-mall.com has some pages of advice on how to get rid of the buggers.
As far as a connection between the two; I've never seen nor heard anything linking them beyond the name "spider".
Spider mites on the other hand are not spiders at all, but I belive they are arachnids (Would be nice to have Kari for that one too!) Anyway, they are bad news. http://www.cactus-mall.com has some pages of advice on how to get rid of the buggers.
As far as a connection between the two; I've never seen nor heard anything linking them beyond the name "spider".
Yeah I agree with Daiv. No harm no problem. Beside the ones I get on mine are not usually big ones at all so they don't bug me. I don't usally like spiders and I have a bit of an arachniphobia, but I leave the little ones alone on my cacti. In my head I think they keep insects away, though I'm not really sure if that's true. As far as spider mites I don't knwo much about them, I've been lucky not to have any problems there.
Andy
Andy
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templegatejohn
- Posts: 1198
- Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 2:57 pm
- Location: Leeds, England
Hi everybody,
Yes spiders are the good guys, they say in some of the books that they will even eat mealy bugs. I don't know whether this is true as I have never had any mealy bug
Daiv is quite right in saying that the mites usually called red spider mite are not spiders and are very harmful to cacti. You will always get them in a very dry atmosphere. They do not like moisture of any kind so a good spray with clean water now and again helps to keep them at bay.
John
Yes spiders are the good guys, they say in some of the books that they will even eat mealy bugs. I don't know whether this is true as I have never had any mealy bug
Daiv is quite right in saying that the mites usually called red spider mite are not spiders and are very harmful to cacti. You will always get them in a very dry atmosphere. They do not like moisture of any kind so a good spray with clean water now and again helps to keep them at bay.
John