CategoryGardening

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box caterpillars

Very Hungry Box Caterpillars – A Formidable Enemy

A losing battle with Box Tree Moth Caterpillars gave rise to a costly garden project.

Towards the end of May last year, when the two mature box (buxus) hedges at the front of our house should have been sprouting new leaves, I noticed that barren patches were starting to appear. These hedges were planted 20 years ago and provide attractive green borders for two miniature gardens, so the sudden change in their appearance was worrying.

You Can Lose Your Box Hedges in a Fortnight!

I had heard on the news that box tree moth caterpillars were spreading rapidly in the UK, so I peered inside the hedges to take a closer look at what was going on. To my horror, I found dozens of these bright green and black menaces munching away on the leaves. Around 30% of our hedges had already been stripped of all their greenery before I had even realised what was happening. My grandson loves the children’s story “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” – I wanted to show him a real life version, but I guess he might have found this a bit scary!

Creating a Japanese Garden in Kent

A garden makeover – a challenging DIY project

When we bought our home in Kent, we had acquired quite a large, but not very appealing, semi-circular area of front garden. It was basically an expanse of driveway gravel with a few shrubs randomly planted in borders which had been created using upturned patio bricks. The good news was that there was clearly potential here for our Japanese garden project. But how to go about it?

The "old" garden
The original semi-circular garden

My wife, who comes from Japan herself, spent some time studying garden design books to figure out what sort of Japanese garden would work best in the space. Neither of us had ever done a project like this before and we weren’t really sure how to begin. But it wasn’t long before we were out digging up the front garden and levelling the whole area.