Box Topiary

A post about beating the box caterpillar

I will be clipping my box plants this weekend and it prompts me to address the issue that terrifies anyone who has a garden built around this classic hedging and topiary plant: the dreaded box caterpillar. These bright green and black caterpillars are the larvae of the Box Tree Moth (Cydalima perspectalis), a pest that was accidentally introduced to Europe in the early 2000s from Korea, arriving on a shipping container. The moths were first spotted in Britain in 2007, and are swiftly spreading up and down the country; in London they have destroyed huge numbers of plants. Surrounded by the telltale white cobwebs, the voracious caterpillars can munch through the leaves of a large box ball overnight, completely defoliating it and if not killing the plant, rendering it irreversibly sickly.