by Leslie Cox; Sunday, July 28, 2013
Was doing some tidy-up the other day in my rose garden. I had allowed my dead-heading chore to lapse a bit but with friends coming over for an evening visit that included a glass of wine, dessert and a garden tour I had to jump to it.
So I was busily snipping away at the spent flowers when I spotted it.
A small, dark, glossy egg mass!
Some dastardly forest tent caterpillar moth (Malacosoma disstria) had laid its eggs on a flowering branch of my Rosa ‘Fair Bianca’ and encased them in spumaline. This guarantees we will have more of these tent caterpillars in our garden next year. Darn.
(Can you see the round bumps on this thing in the photo to the right? Those are the individual eggs. Lots of them!)
But there will not be any little caterpillars emerging from this particular brood of eggs because I snipped it off and promptly disposed of it in the garbage. Doing my bit to keep the caterpillar numbers down.
That got me to thinking…
We have had quite a large number of birds in our garden this year. And a wide variety of species. Not to say we do not always have lots of birds in the garden. We do. But this year the population seems to be up and a couple of species we have never seen in our garden before. I wonder if it is because of our explosive number of tent caterpillars?
One of the birch trees was brimming with birds earlier in the season and that is exactly where the largest number of forest tent caterpillars were coming from.
More recently, I was treated to a scene of a sparrow snatching a moth right out of the air in front of my kitchen window, alight on a perch and gulp it down for its lunch.
Nature does have her own ways of dealing with pest infestations…if you give her a chance.
Well…all these thoughts kept me company during my tidying up in the garden right up until it was time to get cleaned up and supper eaten ahead our guests arriving.
If you have not shared a bottle of wine while touring your garden with good friends, you must! It is a delightful way to celebrate the gathering coolness of the evening after a scorching day. And while the plants may still be gasping to regain their composure from heat stress, they seem to primp a little as you pass by.
But there was to be one more horrific discovery before the tour ended. Bet you can guess. And you would be right…more forest tent caterpillar egg masses.
In fact, lots of them…way up in the topmost branches of our 20+ ft (7.2 m) Sambucus nigra ‘Marginata’ (variegated elderberry). It is going to be impossible to reach all of them.
A little bit discouraging. John and I had been pretty diligent in disposing of all of the forest tent caterpillars as we came across them in the garden. Don’t know how many mornings I made it my first chore of the day to eradicate all caterpillars within reach as they descended out of the birch tree. Some mornings I even had John set up the ladder to get bunches of them that were higher up. There were oodles of them every single morning for it seemed like two weeks or more. (Should have kept track for future reference.)
So, yes…because of all the extra work catching these guys, on top of the regular chores, we were really glad to see the birds higher up in the tree, hoping they were dealing with the tent caterpillars way out of our reach.
But it is looking like we may have the same problem next year. From these early egg mass sightings, it is heading up to be a two year forest tent caterpillar explosion for us. Each egg mass can be harbouring as many 350 eggs from which minute larvae will hatch. These will grow just enough before they enter a hibernation state until the spring temperatures reach optimum warmth for their breaking out.
Hmmm…I wonder if spraying the shrubs and trees with dormant oil spray this winter, and before the leaf buds form, would have an impact on controlling the larvae breaking out of their egg masses next spring?
Research! Must do more research!
Thankfully there is a time lag before we need this information because right now we are up to our armpits in processing zucchinis! They are coming fast and furious. May have to re-think putting as many as nine zucchini plants in next year’s veggie garden plan.
But then, we have a lot of demand from family and friends for our zucchini relish. And who can resist Chocolate Zucchini Cake??! That is one really great dessert recipe to serve those good friends coming for an evening garden tour. Don’t forget the glass of wine!
