I have many different species of spiders in my garden and try to encourage them as much as I can, even though it's a bit disconcerting when you come in from the garden and find one inside your shirt!
Here's a jumping spider I found on my rugosa rose.
Excellent photo, How do you go about encouraging them?
I leave part of my lawn uncut at the back of the garden and in my flower beds I don't cut anything back in the fall. Usually there are lots of spider egg cases on the old flower stalks and tall blades of grass. Log piles are useful for spiders such as wolf spiders. The principles are the same as for attracting most wildlife. And of course, no chemicals.
Spiders are very useful in the garden as they eat a tremendous amount of garden pests. I think they're amazing!
What a handsome fellow! I love the head on shot. We've got lots of spiders here because so much of the preperty is left au naturelle and we have firewood and I do tend to find quite a few in the log pile. We like spiders.
Jumping spiders are some of my favorites. They look like little furry dogs. Okay, maybe mutant dogs with eight legs and multiple eyes...But they're still pretty darned neat looking. ;) Nice photos! Here's a couple of spiders I've photographed around here:
http://www.treklens.com/gallery/North_America/United_States/photo5583.htm
http://www.treklens.com/gallery/North_America/United_States/photo6637.htm
Love your photos GW! I love photographing insects.
I think the jumping spiders are adorable, they look like little cartoon characters!
