Natural Beauty, or Problem in Sight? Webs in the Lawn

If you’re a gardener who marvels at nature’s little wonders like me… well, you’re probably being judged when you rave about the pretty morning webs in your lawn.

But today, you’ve got the right to “let your hair down” in your appreciation of these pretty, dew-water-beaded canvases. And you know what’s even prettier than the canvas itself? The name! I’ve heard them called fairy handkerchiefs.

In the Magic of an Enchanted Lawn

I have a lot of them at home and I marvel at them every time. They’re delicate, fragile, like fine lace suspended on the grass, and when the sun shines on them, the little dewdrops turn into diamonds. Lace and diamonds: a fairy’s handkerchief. How poetic!

In Your Columnist’s Nightmare

In the world of arthropods, many animals make webs. Some use them to protect their eggs, line their hiding places, or play a game of “follow the thread” where the female will eventually find something to impregnate herself with. The silkworm is none other than a caterpillar whose cocoon is unwound to spin the precious thread into a textile. Humans don’t always see these tiny threads or webs, so we’d never imagine that crickets, for example, make silk!

But I know all about it. So when I started researching this article, I was expecting… just about anything.

What was my disappointment (and horror!) to discover that these webs are made by my sworn enemies: spiders! I had a big dilemma: do I stop and change the subject, or continue and brave all the horrifying images on the sites and articles?

You’re lucky, really lucky… I’ve decided to persevere. But don’t be surprised if I only skim the surface and don’t include a picture of a spider in my article. I wanted to talk about beauty. Not those dreadful bugs!

Disillusionment and courage

The spiders responsible for these beautiful webs are members of the Linyphiidae family. It is estimated that over 600 species of this family are found in Canada, and a similar number in Europe. They are generally small spiders, just a few millimeters in length, and are very similar from one species to another, making them difficult to identify.

Some species would be more present in certain types of vegetation, but after twenty minutes of reading and jumping every time a web page with images was loaded, I didn’t have the courage to go any further. Anyway, Latin names for bugs as big as pinheads aren’t too interesting, are they? Not today, anyway!

The little rascals that live in the lawn often hang under their webbing, with their backs to the ground. It’s a good way to protect yourself from the morning dew, and an effective trap for walking insects.

Inside the Mind of a Gardener… and a Garden Center!

You must be happy to have little soldiers eating insects off the lawn. Many pest larvae live on the ground and can be eaten by spiders: their presence is a blessing. (Especially since they have the decency to stay under the web and I can’t see them!) What’s more, they don’t attack humans because they’re too small to bite us, and they don’t try to get into homes (phew!).

But watch out! There’s a look-alike for these fairy handkerchiefs, and if you can’t tell the difference, you might just get ripped off at the garden centre!

Very similar from a distance, you can’t go wrong getting closer. This “web” is in fact mycelium. This is the generally underground part of fungi. In this case, we’re dealing with a disease known as dollarspots, which is in fact an attack by fungi of the Clarireedia genus, formerly known as Sclerotinia homoeocarpa.

To recognize this condition, you need to look closely at the canvases. If the appearance is a general, irregular geometry, but smooth as a light fabric, it’s the work of one of your little soldiers. If the appearance is rather frothy or cottony, with feather-like shapes forming on the blades of grass, and you can’t see the geometric shapes, it’s the fungus. These don’t persist all day, but yellow patches a few centimetres in diameter eventually appear in the lawn.

Conditions in which this pest thrives are as follows: dry, poor soil, high ambient humidity, fairly warm temperatures during the day (between 20 and 30°C, 68 to 86?), and cooler temperatures at night. In short, in Canada, it can strike in spring, early summer and autumn. It’s a problem that seems to be fairly widespread, especially on golf courses.

In Any Case, It’s Easy to Avoid… Except on Golf Courses!

Using your gardener’s logic, there’s no need to spend hundreds of dollars to cure your dollar spots! If garden centers and lawn care companies are selling you miracle fertilizers, resurfacing, aeration cures, etc., know that it’s because it’s forbidden to spray fungicides on a private lawn in Quebec. In other words: no simple, effective remedy to spray, and a lot of charlatans in sight!

You see where I’m going with this: all you have to do is change your mowing habits and the problem will take care of itself!

Mow less short and less often to keep the soil more moist; leave your clippings in place to fertilize your soil; let variety settle into your lawn so that their roots aerate deep down, which simple lawns don’t do.

With a few good habits, it should clear up. If you’re VERY sick, giving your plants a helping hand by spreading fertilizer and/or compost can help. Watering in the morning is also preferable to watering in the afternoon or evening, so that the water penetrates deeply without evaporating or creating exacerbated humidity in the evening.

It’s worth noting, however, that watering your lawn is forbidden in many municipalities, and this advice probably applies more to golf courses. After all, they can’t let the grass grow or leave the clippings in place!

In short, this article, which was intended as an ode to the magnificence of nature, took an unexpected turn. But isn’t the complexity of its connections and diversity also part of nature’s beauty?