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| I don't have a clue about correct spider names or anything, but this is Compost Guy/Gal. He/she hangs out above our compost bin and presumably does a roaring trade in the tiny insects attracted to the delicious aromas emanating from the compost bin. |
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| Again, no clue as to its name, but as my garden is forever leafy, there's never any shortage of building materials for leaf-curling spiders. |
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| This beautifully hairy brown spider currently has a magnificent three-feet-wide web strung up between the frangipani tree and a murraya hedge. Being biggish and out on a wide web in broad daylight is a risky strategy (birds might see that fat little spider as a lunch snack) so this person dashes out when a foolish fly/gnat or whatever gets stuck in the sticky stuff, wraps it up neatly and quickly, then scuttles back to the fragrant comfort of its frangipani hidey hole. |
The Saint Andrew's Cross Spider has a clever method of scaring off potential predators by weaving extra 'legs' of spider web material and standing on the web in a way that makes it look like a spider twice its size. Andrew/Andrea measures about 3cm on the diagonal, from leg-tip to leg-tip and makes his living helping to keep garden insect numbers down. 
I don't know the species of spider which created this tiny little web in part of my murraya hedge, but I was amazed by its tiny size and basket-like construction. The whole web is about 1cm across (ie, half an inch). (Update below, I've solved the mystery!)
UPDATE! After doing this blog post in the morning, the tiny web mystery was solved later in the evening. The net belongs to the Net Casting Spider. This amazing spider holds its net in its 'hands' and as soon as a customer comes along, it wraps it up in its net. The net and the spider were gone this morning, so I presume its strategy worked well, yet again.
Stupidly, in the morning I poked a biro tip into the photo to give some sense of the net casting spider web's tinyness and managed to bump it out of shape. I am sure that all spiders see us humans as dopey, blundering clods. Of course we don't always have the best opinion of them, either, but that's mostly due to those unpleasant entanglements at night or on early mornings. Pam and I have developed a handy little way of coping with our various garden webmasters.
Here's the main alleyway for spiders at my place: the three and a bit metres from the front gate to the front door, edged on both sides by hedges. The St Andrew's Cross Spider builds its web along the line of the hedges on the left, and present no problems for us, and we don't bother it (although there is an outside chance that our tossed-in morning newspaper delivery could ruin Andrew's day, but that hasn't happened yet this year.) However, there are some other spiders who simply cannot learn that spinning a web across the path, between the hedges, is simply NOT ON! And so they're repeat offenders, always at night of course, building webs across the pathway.
The solution is simple: a good supply of sticks, at both ends of the path (fortunately our street tree, a eucalyptus, provides a constant source of sticks). Waving the stick before you as you proceed up the path does make you look like a weirdo, but it works, and as it's night time you rarely (but not never!) get caught waving the magic wand. I wish the other spiders were more like Andrew, but I have at least learned that, like human society, the society of spidery garden webmasters has its fair share of dummies who'll just never learn.
While I've mentioned my other zinnia patch I haven't devoted any space to this charming pocket of Zinnia angustifolia plants, which is near my lemon tree towards the back of the garden. There are just four plants pictured here. It's a low, spreading thing that will reach 70cm across, so the books say.
I'm quite taken with its pretty little orangey-yellow cluster of inner blooms, which look like so many mini frangipanis. There's no scent to speak of but the sight is cheery – it's a plant which makes you smile.
Here's the latest addition to the garden, an impulse buy (of sorts) this morning. I was at a gardening centre this morning buying mulch for a job I'll be doing at my mother-in-law's tomorrow, and while wheeling around in my usual retail centre daze I spotted this Acacia cognata 'Limelight'. Pam has been wanting me to grow one for about a year, ever since she saw an Acacia cognata at the Sydney Botanical Gardens. The one at the Botanical Gardens is fab, a small, dome-shaped foliage plant with a weepy habit – and the foliage is, as the name implies, lime-green. 
Speaking of lovely green foliage, I've tossed in this shot of the mint pot today as I plan to blog away soon about an interesting little project I have underway. Some good friends have just bought a house nearby and have blown all their dough on a kitchen renovation, so they have no money for a garden. So, I've decided to create a little garden for them, all from cuttings and seeds (hence the mint shot – I'm striking mint cuttings, which is about as tricky as breathing). My friends are both very good cooks, so a herb and salad garden is where we're headed. They haven't got a clue about gardening, which is why I think we'll start out small and see if they can master the first basic – keeping plants alive by remembering to water them – before we move onto the Bablyonian hanging gardens, etc. 
This is the mint after 12 days in a jar of water. Isn't vigorous or anything, is it? I've also dug up clumps of oregano and thyme, and taken cuttings of rosemary and sage, and the seed trays of lettuce, green onions, spinach, silver beet, coriander and parsley are all making good progress, too. Once it all gets going, it should be fun to blog about later on.
My succulents are loving autumn, and several of them, such as this echeveria, are flowering their funny looking little heads off. Though succulents come from climate zones with hot, dry summers, those same climate zones also often have wet, cool winters, and so these plants have adapted to do all their growing and flowering in autumn, winter and spring. Then they shut down for the summer, living off their stored reserves of moisture (hence their 'waterwise' reputation, which is a bit misleading when it comes to their care). And though Sydney is a much more consistently moist place than their homelands, they still respond to the cooler weather and shorter daylight hours of autumn, even here, and they're all thriving now. This is when I feed them and water them if it's been dry for several days in a row.
If you think the succulents are a bit strange looking, this alarming pink fungus, which sprang up from the mulch near my lemon tree, is in a class of its own. By dawn the next day it was gone (or, more accurately, detumescent), but it hosted a hell of a party for all the local flies attracted to its alluring (but very, very slight) 'dead flesh' smell.
Autumn has also seen an explosion in the local spider population, and this year there are big numbers of what I call the 'homemaker' spiders – those which include a wrapped-up leaf within their web as a protective shell. 
As I was taking my photo of Homey he/she very obligingly popped out and attended to yet another foolish insect which wandered into his/her web. He/she was out doing that amazing, spidery silk-weaving thing for a mere 20 seconds, scurrying back to its leafy address once dinner had been organised.
Speaking of organising dinner, that's what I should be doing now, instead of blogging. Here's a small part of it, some young olive-leaf rocket, a new variety which I'm growing from seed. As it's so small I won't take too much, but I need a bed of rocket for what I have in mind.
The rest of tonight's bed of rocket will come from this pot of the common type of rocket which everyone grows here, which is ready for harvesting. I'm a great believer in harvesting and eating rocket when it is very small and nicely nutty. Leave this pot for another week and the rocket will start to take on that strong, peppery flavour that very few people like. 
