Natural Ways to Keep Spiders Out of the Yard

Landscaping

• Spiders like protected areas that provide shelter and shade, such as the underside of shrubs and the hidden corners beneath porches. Spiders build webs in areas frequented by bugs, such as undisturbed woodpiles. Cleaning up your landscape and minimizing their natural habitat areas will help discourage spiders from roaming near your outdoor living areas, including patios and playgrounds. Trim back overgrown shrubs, especially ones next to your home or foundation. Remove woodpiles, trash and debris. Sweep the undersides of open stairways and foundation ledges. Use a hard spray of water from a garden hose to wash off spiders and webs that appear on playground equipment, around porches and under overhanging eaves.

Lighting

• Spiders live wherever their food source exists, often around outdoor light fixtures that draw nighttime bugs, such as beetles and moths. Replace the standard bulbs in porch lights and landscape lighting with yellow light bulbs or sodium vapor light bulbs. These bulbs tend to attract fewer nighttime insects, helping to reduce the population of spiders in and around outside structures and porches.

Control Reproduction

• Spiders have short life spans, often living only one or two years. Female spiders can lay hundreds or thousands of eggs during their lifetimes, leading to extensive populations of spiders. Removing the egg sacs eliminates numerous spiders before they have the chance to invade your yard. The egg sacs may vary, depending on the spider species, but most appear as white, cottony masses near spun webs.

Considerations

• Although most spiders are harmless, some can pose a health risk, especially to small children. Black widow spiders have slender legs and black bodies with a red mark on the undersides of their abdomens. Brown recluse spiders have brownish bodies with darker marks on their backs that look like fiddles. Although natural methods can help reduce these poisonous spiders in the landscape, proper control may require chemical extermination.