Our top garden pest...caterpillar that loves to devour topiary!
A CATERPILLAR that was first discovered in the UK seven years ago has now topped the list of the worst pests plaguing our gardens.
The box tree caterpillar only arrived in the country in 2011, but is already laying waste to hedges and topiary and is now ranked our biggest garden nuisance by the Royal Horticultural Society.
It was the pest that RHS members inquired most about on the society’s telephone advice line last year.
The second most complained about pest was the Fuchsia gall mite, which sucks the sap from the plant.
Gardeners have reported the pests destroying hedges in the affluent London suburbs of Hampstead and Fulham.
The caterpillar, a moth that originated in China, is believed to have flown across the English Channel or stowed away in containers of imported plants.
Sightings of the critter increased from 536 in 2016 to 3,587 in 2017.
Last year slugs and snails were the most complained about pests, but the box tree caterpillar was the top pest in 2015.
Box hedges are also under threat from box blight and another disease called volutella blight – both of which cause twig and leaf death.
Dr Gerard Clover, head of plant health at the RHS, said: ‘It only affects box, which is good, but it really does devastate box.
‘Whole plants are defoliated, and it produces a webbing around the caterpillar, so it’s quite difficult to control.
‘It has never been more important that people get to grips with what is going on in their gardens.’