Welcome to Spiderland

The dry summer heat has started in earnest yesterday and today saw a cloud of insects congregating in my little strip of Gondwanaland enjoying the humid micro climate. Then today with hours the open spaces where criss crossed with new spider webs and judging by the number or holes they had already done battle and eaten a number of those large buzzing blow flys.

BTW the Gondwanaland garden is on the south side of my house and it definitely cools the entrance and lower floor. Natural Air conditioning, at least while this ferny glade restrains some of its natural humidity.

something new

This is the first time I have noticed a spiders web in my cretaceous garden. It might indicate that the garden is drying out, normally I associate spider webs with dry, very low humidity, places. Whilst i have seen plenty of spiders around, red backs, white tails, and huntsman, but i suspect this is an orb spider web (the nicely circular section on the center is very characteristic). You never know it may well be a close relative of the spiders in space that perished when the columbia came apart on renetry. Those golden orb spider came from around this way.

Looking around the web, internet that is, I still can't find any evidence to support my suspicion that spiders webs mean the garden is drying out, but here is great page a spider myths

Some excitement

The humid weather, and being given a spell out in the rain, has prompted a littel growth spurt on my wollemi pine. At this stage I'm not sure if its buds for new braches or perhaps some cones developing. I'll keep you posted

Measurements begin

As a first pass investigation I thought I should monitor how much humidity my little garden would maintain after a watering the previous night. I have a cheap desktop "weather station" (the clock battry ran out ages ago but the temperature and humidty dial still work) and placed in a shady spot. Then I just recorded the humidity every hour (yes I did sleep in! and miss the 9 am reading, but it is summer!)

I was somewhat surprised, it looks like my garden was not going to be able to maintain its humidity levels, as a natural way to fight of the heat.

10:00 AM 60%
11:00 AM 55%
12:00 NOON 40%
1:00 PM 33%
2:00 PM 27%
3:00 PM 23%
4:00 PM 20%