Hi Scary...It's a good thing you isolated the ivy from other plants, but for the sake of caution, check your new plants..Mites travel. This is how I overwinter ivy indoors..For one, it should be planted in well-draining soil. Do not keep soil wet..Allow it to dry between waterings. The next step is to find a location that's bright, w/o direct sunlight. Keep away from any heating ducts..dry heat attracts mites. A cool, even cold room would be ideal..Ivy adapts to cold temps...hedera helix are hardy to zone 5.. Mist daily..every so often, add 2-4 drops dish soap, shake and spray. I also add citrus rind and chopped garlic, but this is optional. If you can keep your ivy cool in winter, I think you got the problem licked. Good luck, Toni

I just have to say this. I have Arachnophobia. When I was in college my Entomology professor plopped a container of preserved insects in front of me. Guess what was right on the top of the pile. Yep a spider. Personally I didn't care if I embarrassed myself. I told him that there was no way I would ever reach into that jar bare handed. I asked for a pair of tweezer or forceps. After searching around he found something for me to use. Everyone thought it was funny.... Not so when I'm paralyzed with fear. My professor teased me occasionally about this but it was good natured. Don't get me wrong I don't kill spiders. Their importance as predators is unmatched (that's my opinion of course). If they are hanging over my head or get in my face I scoot them away. I've been reading everyone's posts here and can actually feel the hair on my arms stand up. Yikes.

They are wonderful garden helpers. The ones in my garden often build webs across a garden path, in between either trellises, tomato cages/plants or tall plants like hollyhocks, corn, sunflowers and amaranths. Because these garden spiders devour many insect pests, I don't even knock down their webs if I can avoid it. I want them in the garden eating all the insects they want. I'd rather turn around and go down another path and then come back up the spider web's path on the other side of the web than to knock it down. We used to have tons and tons of them everywhere, but they have been really scarce since 2011. I think I went a year or more after 2011 without seeing a single one, but now their population has made a mini-comeback. I treasure each one that I see. Dorothy, I hope your population makes a comeback too because I cannot imagine gardening without the aid of spiders. Jen, The only venomous spiders I've ever seen here are the black widows and the brown recluses and I kill every one of them that I see. My garden is full of spiders of all kinds and almost all of them are helpful. I've never had a brown recluse in the garden (they like to hide in dark corners of closets and places like that) but either our first or second summer here, we had black widows in the garden which freaked me out. I haven't seen one of them in the garden since then, but sometimes see them in the garage. The only other venomous spider I am aware of in OK, but never have seen myself, is the black widow's cousin, the brown widow. I'm going to link a webpage that shows many of the spiders known to be somewhat common in Oklahoma.' Dawn Spiders of Oklahoma

As a reformed arachnophobe, I sympathize with anyone suffering from any kind of phobia. You are one step ahead of the game by knowing that your fear is irrational....a fear that is not supported by reality. Any good therapist will say that as horrible as phobias are, they are also one of the easiest of all disorders to overcome....with the right kind of help. I can attest to that, personally. While still going to college, I decided to take advantage of my university's big student counseling department to see if someone could help me with my absolutely debilitating acrophobia. I was a disaster. It took two meetings a week for a single month....one month....plus some 'homework' on my part and I was running up and down stairs just like every other normal person! I quickly adapted the tools that I learned from those sessions in order to overcome my irrational fear of spiders. You can do it, too; it's an awesome relief to be rid of the fear of spiders, a very common part of our everyday life. I live in an area where black and brown widows are extremely common, like zzacky. No big deal to me, at all. And as an active horticulturist and home gardener, I have been bitten by many spiders, even a brown recluse, with very little effect. I wish you luck, goseutah. As was said, you can't annihilate all of the spiders so you might as well overcome your fear. Heck, I've got a resident jumping spider living in my car! He seems to like hanging out with me when I'm driving, lol.