The role of the male garden spider is primarily to wander about in search of females. When a male locates a female, he will construct a small web next to, or even in, her large web. Male garden spiders use a system of tapping on a female's web to express their desire to mate. If the female is receptive, mating will take place. After mating season is over, the males will often die from starvation and exhaustion.
Female garden spiders will lay their eggs in the fall in silky eggs sacs that are rounded with one narrower end, similar in shape to a balloon. The egg sacs usually contain anywhere from 50 to many hundreds of eggs. Some species are said to deposit as many as 1,000 eggs in each sac. The rounded sac is covered in layers of silk, and the brown outer layer has a paper-like appearance. The sacs are attached to the web and are quite strong. Garden spiders' egg sacs are fairly large, usually from about ¼” to 1″ in size.
The females usually die shortly after they lay their eggs and generally do not survive the cold winter. In the spring, the spiderlings will emerge from the egg sac and tend to disperse, though some will stay near the sac. The spiderlings are quite small in size and aren't usually noticed by people until they mature and become much larger, which generally occurs in late summer.