The box ball blues
Amateur Gardening|October 07, 2023
As if his beleaguered box hadn't already taken a beating, Toby now has to deal with some hungry box caterpillars
TOBY BUCKLAND
The box ball blues

AT first, I thought my box topiary had sunburn. Then I remembered the washout weather and wondered if they had drowned. But meteorological matters aren’t the cause of their malaise. My box is under attack from a relatively new menace that’s probably already in (or on its way to) your garden.

The box tree caterpillar is a species that hails from China, but in 2008 a clutch took a long-haul flight to Germany and after visiting Switzerland and the Netherlands, a few fluttered to gardens in Sussex and Surrey. By the time they were noticed, they’d expanded their numbers and travel plans, and were visiting gardens across the south, plus a growing list of postcodes in the north.

I’d seen their damage in other people’s hedges and blithely assumed that my garden would be off their radar. How wrong I was. Close inspection of my topiary balls reveals the tell-tale signs of their presence: missing and glued-together leaves, frass, webbing and a mob of feeding caterpillars.

Denne historien er fra October 07, 2023-utgaven av Amateur Gardening.

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Denne historien er fra October 07, 2023-utgaven av Amateur Gardening.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.