Without researching, I'd think thick holly leaves wouldn't be favored by spider mites. Could be just standard spiders.....

seems pretty early for spiders to be so apparent.. but i have no other ideas

ok.. so ma nature proves me wrong.. lol .. its snowing in my MI .. and guess what i see as i walk to the car ... snow filled webs .. lol .. kid you not ...

so.. its time for spiders to put out their broods.. if that is the right term ...

do understand.. most spiders are beneficial.. eating things that you might not want on your plants ... so dont go all nutso on them just because..

they arent in your house.. and are usually your friends ... so leave them be.. until you actually find they are doing some harm to your plants ...

and with the snow.. i saw them at 8 feet away.. they arent spider mites ... any chance you can show us a pic??

ken

Pics are almost always helpful.

Found some more webs and got some photos.

I am a spider lover... even if they are in my house...trap and release is my modus operandi.

I want to point out the dead Holly leaves I think are due to these leaves growing in a souther state and then bought online and grown up north and not dealing with the extra cold temps this winter...but last year I did notice new growth on ends las spring seeming compromised in some manner. I should have observed more closely then,

Sorry no photos of the "tiny spiders" I saw the first time...just don't see any life in these webs.

Bengz6westmd ...I was wondering about webworms too, because for the first time I saw signs of them on street trees a few houses away.

But I never saw the worms in the webs which left me puzzled.

These pathetic American Holly trees I have are super young and only have a couple decent leaves LOL!, so I'm trying to give them the help they need, don't think they can spare losing new shoots.

So when do the webworms become visible in the webs if this is what they are? Right now I see empty webs.

The "worms" may have already left to pupate, or birds or hunting wasps might have picked them off, etc.

Caterpillars will leave dark specks of frass in active feeding areas and in or near webbing.

Oh thanks The Logician LLC for the tip on "dark specks of grass in active feeding areas and near webbing"!

Excellent tip.

Also bengz6westmd I agree about those wasps, a few years ago I saw one eat some unknown type of eggs laid on an evergreen shrub, I had never seen anything like it before- it devoured them in about 20-30 minutes. Pretty amazing!

thanks everyone!

Hi Sue:

Postings about Holly are always interesting to me. Show us your whole plants! And know that American Holly sheds a set of old leaves every spring, right as or before new growth extensions start which are accompanied by flowering.

When the old leaves yellow and begin to drop off, new gardeners often worry that their plant is dying. Not so, and it will be an annual event - so mark it on your gardening calendar.

That does not look like spider mite (or any mite) activity to me, either. It would likely be much too early in the season for Pittsburgh zone anyway - I suspect you are not experiencing anything like hot weather yet. Could've been some leftover caterpillar activity, or a spider adventitiously creating space to capture wayward early season insects. If you see nothing live, clean it up and wait to see if it is reformed or anything comes back.

I'm most interested in which selections of Ilex opaca that you've invested in! Pittsburgh is close to the home of Pride Nursery, where some of the most hardy selections of American Holly were ever selected and introduced - the Grace hybrid group. But if you were looking for specific clones, then mail order is probably the way to go.

Escaped hollies (not sure of species) in the understory in an old abandoned nursery near Mt Savage, MD.