We are still seeing the snow on the mountains here. Also feeling the cold for days on end, even with the sun shining. But the flowers are bursting with spring colors and the birds are active, even with the rain this morning.
Stunning photographs of the butterflies, even though their caterpillars are eating my seedlings, and of the birds in the Bottlebrush. The sunbird and sugar birds are always a feast for the eyes!
Nip in the air now, appears we will have rain hopefully over the weekend, no rain of late, garden is extremely dry.
Last month these large white butterflies filled the garden, slowly starting to see others arrive again. Birds really enjoyed the nectar, fresh blooms opening when they arrived and dived straight in.
Here in the Cape, there are still weekly rains. It is so cold. Hearing news from Pretoria that it is again extremely hot after a brief cold spell.
Those butterflies are so beautiful. The smaller white ones with the black dot on their backs always spells doom for me, they eat the plants from the brassica family, rocket, mustard and those plants.
Some tend to devour certain plants in caterpillar phase not that bad the one cannot turn a blind eye !LOLZ
That is the problem! I have had whole crops devoured by certain caterpillars in less than two days, other ones tend to live more harmoniously with the plants.
We have some that go for the cycas and bulb plants, over the years I have learned to turn a blind eye and noticed they do damage but not that intense to warrant chemicals coming out.
I am sorry for only responding now. What a crazy week of traveling, things are slowing down a bit in that department.
For sure, chemical treatment is rarely the option. But sometimes it is needed even if only to help establish the plants. I had to throw some poison out for a snail attack on my small fynbos plants. They devoured everything. But after the plants established themselves, the slugs and snails had a feast without destroying the whole plant.
Slugs and snails I used beer traps, not sure if it's the smell or they drowned in the effort of getting to the plants!