Although butterflies are very beautiful, there is no doubt that their offspring are an absolute curse - particularly the little black and grey hairy caterpillars currently munching their way through my flowerbeds. Over the last week or so, the parrot plant has gone from being a magnificent sprawling mass just bursting into a mass display of flowers to a few bare straggling twigs as these little monsters eat 24 hours a day. My mother had a similar plant and it was consumed in its entirety, never to be seen again.
Imagine my dismay when I went outside this afternoon to water my pride and joy, the calendulas, which were only yesterday a mass display of broad green leaves and joyful yellow and orange flowers, completely hiding the wall behind them. Only a few
stokkies remain and the ground underneath is littered with caterpillar droppings. They are recycling this plant within hours.
Unfortunately there seems to be no solution, as I am totally opposed to poisons, and flicking them off with my finger and stamping on them is making no inroads into their numbers.
Perhaps I should just buy silk flowers and place them strategically in the shrubbery.
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