After posting my extra photo today @maggiemae talked about hedges & it reminded me that I had take a photo yesterday at the garden party of an infestation of the dreaded Ermine Moth.
Apparently someone was saying its years since we last had a really bad spread of these greedy caterpillars.
They can strip a hedge by eating the leaves of hawthorn or privet in days leaving a real mess. Blackish caterpillars if I remember from the last time I saw them.
The Ermine Moth itself is quite pretty but it's caterpillar stage is not.
Sound like a bit of a menace.. though we over here would not b upset about them eating privot.. Privot here is a noxious plant and is a real problem for asthmatics,
@julzmaioro really Julz...I have never heard that before..the British privet is a standard hedge for most gardens. To be honest I am not sure whether the moth lays on privet or not. I wonder if your privet is different from ours?
I have not heard of this nasty customer - but in the local paper quite recently there was a photo and a story of a whole area of hedge been stripped clean by some caterpillars --black ones if I remember rightly !! -- wish I had taken more notice of the whole thing now !!
I expect there is a spray for it and knowledge is a great thing! Perhaps this should be taught in schools and get the children to go round looking for these wicked caterpillars!
Interesting story and photo. We have two white cedar trees and the hairy caterpillars strip it bare. It doesn't matter how many times we spray the tree the caterpillar's still manage to come back.
