lol scott I hate these things. They build giant webs overnight so I can walk right in the middle of one the next day. It's a good guy, tho. Kinda like the wheelbug... quietly appreciate him at a distance.

Yep, Golden orb. This is the first year I haven't seen one or two around my place. I miss them.

They are wonderful garden helpers. The ones in my garden often build webs across a garden path, in between either trellises, tomato cages/plants or tall plants like hollyhocks, corn, sunflowers and amaranths. Because these garden spiders devour many insect pests, I don't even knock down their webs if I can avoid it. I want them in the garden eating all the insects they want. I'd rather turn around and go down another path and then come back up the spider web's path on the other side of the web than to knock it down. We used to have tons and tons of them everywhere, but they have been really scarce since 2011. I think I went a year or more after 2011 without seeing a single one, but now their population has made a mini-comeback. I treasure each one that I see.

Dorothy, I hope your population makes a comeback too because I cannot imagine gardening without the aid of spiders.

Jen, The only venomous spiders I've ever seen here are the black widows and the brown recluses and I kill every one of them that I see.

My garden is full of spiders of all kinds and almost all of them are helpful. I've never had a brown recluse in the garden (they like to hide in dark corners of closets and places like that) but either our first or second summer here, we had black widows in the garden which freaked me out. I haven't seen one of them in the garden since then, but sometimes see them in the garage.

The only other venomous spider I am aware of in OK, but never have seen myself, is the black widow's cousin, the brown widow.

I'm going to link a webpage that shows many of the spiders known to be somewhat common in Oklahoma.'

Dawn

Spiders of Oklahoma

I remember the first time I saw this large scary spider, I about had a runaway. They are garden friends, but they will bite if cornered or threatened, but I have worked side by side with them and never had a problem. The bite is like a wasp sting but non venomous.

When we first moved into the old house I saw a couple or black widows while painting outside, killed them both and never saw one again. I am sure the are around somewhere but I have not seen any.

I have three webs outside a corner window and I love to watch the spiders -- as long as there is glass between us. We have them every year in the same location. I like them because they kill wasps. I do wish they would go after the copperheads, but they might be a bit overmatched.

It was hard for me to get used to the huge spider population when we first moved here. Our acreage, particularly the woodland acres, are filled with spiders. There's got to be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of spiders per acre. For the first 4 or 5 years, it seemed like all I did was walk into spider webs. I particularly love the golden orb weavers but in the garden any spider I see is a good spider and a great garden companion. The black widows have been less of an issue in recent years, but the first few years I saw them everywhere.

draej, I wish there was a spider here that would go after the copperheads. They've been awful this year. With pools of water and silt still standing on a lot of flooded river bottom land around us, the snakes have not moved back down into the low-lying areas as quickly as I had hoped they would once the rain stopped and the river began to recede (somewhat, it is still much higher than usual for August). Yesterday I celebrated about a week of no venomous snake sightings, and we've had a rather large possum out in the yard every night during that same time frame. I don't know if there is any relation between the two, but there might be since possums eat snakes, including venomous ones. I talk to Mr. or Mrs. Possum every time I see it, which is pretty much daily lately, and ask it kindly to please eat more snakes.

I think the spiders in the garden have been helping control the grasshopper population because there's relatively few hoppers in the garden compared to how many there are out in the pasture areas.

Dawn

Widows are welcome in our home. They are very laid back and aren't likely to bite and if they do, the damage us limited.

I don't recommend playing with them or anything like that, but I appreciate their presence.

Fiddlebacks don't receive the same southern hospitality.