Home
The premise or idea behind the Spider Garden was to create an undisturbed ecosystem to allow beneficial spiders and insects to repopulate the deteriorating habitat of the neighborhood.
This image clearly shows the open landscape which formed the neighborhood's habitat some years ago. Looking in this direction now one would see only a high steel fence.
Habitat: Originally the habitat consisted of up to eight quarter-acre housing blocks. The yards were open to one-another through fencing which consisted of wire fences, open paling and ranch style fences.
There were piles of building materials, DIY sheds, as well as overgrown and undisturbed areas of garden. Pest control measures such as spraying were unheard of in most of the properties. The area is still dotted with healthy trees although a number have been removed. The residents loved the animals and birds and allowed for their needs.
As the elderly residents passed away or the homes were purchased by investors changes were made. The old sheds were knocked down, The overgrown and undisturbed areas were cut back and became regularly mown lawns. The individual properties became isolated habitats as they were surrounded by high, solid, steel fences.
Pest control measures such as poisons sprayed around the property were more common. The yards were cleaned up and building materials removed and bushes trimmed or removed. At least one neighbor began a passionate program of poisoning anything and everything in his yard. Possums in particular died in large numbers and bigger spiders disappeared
Decreasing populations: During a normal summer the unit would be visited by large huntsmen (Isopeda vasta) several times a week. There were several gigantic Garden Orb Weavers (Eriophera) the size of mice. Their fat bodies were always hanging inconveniently across the paths. Long legged Coastal Golden Orb Weavers (Nephila) had nests that could span cubic meters of space between trees and fences and structures. The walls of the sheds were thick with the webs of Black House Spiders.
Along the ground level and elsewhere several species of Salticid jumping spider were common as well as wolf spiders among the leaf litter. This was the time when most of the photography for the site was done. Gradually, over time the changes took place that caused the yards to become almost bare of small creatures.
There were three primary changes to this yard that caused mass species loss among the insects and spiders.
The first was a change in the mowing regime. Formerly the yard had not been mown more than a few times a year. The lax maintanance drove the resident of the other flat nuts but was great for the spiders which thrived. The second was the steel fence which finally isolated the ground of this yard from the others.
The populations of spiders had been surviving even after that because when the fence was built the materials of the old fence had been tossed in a pile behind the garage and had grown over with wandering jew. This area was not able to be mown so it was ideal for small creatures. The large spiders were becoming very uncommon though and the huge Eriophera of past years were gone altogether. Huntsman were, and are, quite uncommon. The benefits of the fencing materials came to an end when the owner decided to do me the service of spraying the pile with weedicide and killed all life off. It was then the decision was made to create an artificial habitat. The sudden lack of choice in the species to photograph was certainly a factor. I began to wonder what species would return if I used native plants and rebuilt a habitat.
At the time of the poisoning. The steel fence is there. The neighbors beyond the paling fence have regularly mown lawns and highly controlled shrubs so the open palings lead to sparse habitat
Part 2
By Steve Solomons. Weblight Studio (Australia)
