Caitilin

HI,

does anyone else here garden? I was just wondering if there are any nasty poisonous bugsies in canada. i'm used to gardening with just thin gloves (or if I know there's no glass in the soil, no gloves) and lo and behold, two weeks ago I feel a jabbing. Look down, see a spider on my arm. It Bit me! !!

i never knew they actually did that. Enfin, one lovely scar later (and yes, it has scarred), I'd rather avoid a repeat as that took ages to heal and scab.

So, poisonous bugsies?

Deb

Coffeepot

Hi Deb
Glaswegian did a thread on this, personaly im more worried about the bears
any news yet on passports ?

Caitilin

Bears being far bigger are a bigger concern...;-)

but i'm hoping to avoid them too.

No news on hte passports yet. I'm about ready to kill someone. But not hte postie, I love my postie and my postie will bring me good news soon, right? *looks hopeful and hides the club*

how are you doing?

fledermaus

Poison Ivy is more of a worry, as are snakes- cos I have a phobia. I've seen very few spiders at all sinswer we have been here. I haven't seen a snake yet but as we are now in the countryside then we will.

AmyDavid

Where in Canada are you looking at going? They have Black Widow spiders out West and they will give you a good bite should you get in their way.

Not sure about anything else. My OH tells me our garden probably has snakes living in it...should I see one, I am going straight back to the UK!

ann m

Ooh - how timely - just had a lecture on insects and pests last week. The only poisonous spider in Alberta is the Black Widow - but rarely seen, and usually only in the southern parts of the province. And not usually in your back garden - I think they prefer animal holes. Don't know about other areas of the country.

Gardening here last year I came across very little in the way of creepy crawlies in the ground - no grubs, or slugs or frogs or other slimey fellas - think it's too dry here for most of them.

And useless peice of information coming up - did you know there were about 75 different kinds of ladybirds - sorry, ladybugs, here in Alberta?!

iaink

Bloody Skitters and blackflies are the worst of the bitters.

I hear black widows where present are shy about biting and would rather get away from you, and the few rattlesnakes around are basically so few and far between that they are mostly in protected conservation areas.

The main difference between the canada and australia "Rough Guides" was a section about an inch thick on stuff that can kill you that was absent from the guide to Canada.

Living near a river in Ontario Im constantly screwing up those straight lines englishmen are supposed to mow into their lawns by having to swerve to avoid the countless frogs that appear from nowhere while mowing, and sadly the harmless garter snakes dont ever seem to hear a weed whacker coming. I hate to hurt them as they are harmless and quite pretty, but they arent very good at self preservation it seems

Lychee

It really depends on where in Canada you are - the insect life varies dramatically as there are so many different ecosystems across Canada.

In Vancouver we have black widows which are truly the only "dangerous" insect, although you don't find them in gardens - if you were to find one at all, it would be in dark, dry places, like an undisturbed, forgotten corner in a garage, behind some boxes, that never sees the light of day!

We do get massive spiders around Vancouver which give you quite a scare if you accidentally find your face in its web! This is especially true if you have hedges.

I don't think I've ever seen a blackfly in Vancouver, however the only thing that could give you a pinch are those awful earwigs! Uggggh! I remember trimming back old growth in the garden years ago and finding earwigs inside the stems of my cosmos! Truly disgusting!

However, nothing truly dangerous, at least not around Vancouver!

Then there are places like the Okanagan in BC which are known to have scorpions and rattlesnakes!

G77

Found this in my basement - they bite apparently, but I think you find them indoor rather than outdoors....

iaink

On an unrelated topic....Ive been here 11 years and my boss just pointed out that a loonie is in fact not round either.....

Aviator

And there is these little buggers

Which cause this
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/id-mi/lyme-fs-eng.php

TrishP

Oh that's one of those house centipede thingys ... they're supposed to be good at keeping the spider population down INSIDE your house. They don't bite, but do move at a fair rate and isn't the most pleasant of things to know is roaming around your home!

Caitilin

I'm looking at Calgary and Vancouver - I know, thats still a lot of geographical zones!

So its basically black widows (note to self, be careful around those) and snakes?

Snakes don't worry me - I have a pet snake and I know more than enough to stay a long way away from any snake that isn't mine!
Having said that, most snakes are more afraid of us than we are of them. That said, I appreciate people not killing them if they're cute wee little garter snakes...they're just harmless babies ;-) So thank you Iaink

Ann, no, I didn't know. Are they all beautifully coloured or are there also plain janes?

G77, you've just given me the bad guy for my next piece of fiction. Magnified a few thousand times. Not something you'd want to come across eh?

fledermaus, I suspect i'll run into poison ivy one of these days, as everyone warns me for the stuff and nobody ever points it out...as everyone diligently gets rid of it!

Aviator: I had a tick once. I'd rather avoid having them again, but you have a good point

Auld Yin

Snakes don't worry me

Snakes are not an issue in Canada because if they were I would not be here. In 40 years of living here I have only seen one garter snake.

G77

Depends on your area i'd say - they are freqent around here, I saw one within my first few weeks and I wasn't even looking for it, it was just sunbathing on a path at a local nature reserve. The same reserve has lots of warning signs about not having exposed legs due to rattlesnakes. The snake I saw however was harmless...

This was the place, snakes are at the bottom :-

http://www.ojibway.ca/herps.htm

They are apparently common around the trails here too. I haven't seen any in the garden though...