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Wed, Jul 21, 10 at 18:39
| I'll try to keep this short...
Had a the biggest hail/wind and torrential rain storm I have seen in a decade on Sunday. Tore up everything in my garden and pond. Lily pads,canna and lotus leaves completely shredded...and on and on! Just awful to see all your hard work and energy (not to mention the shear beauty of it)be destroyed in 10 minutes. Anyway, noticed the watercress I had that had been growing quite well on my waterfall looked pretty beat up. Hadn't had time with work and all to take a closer look at it until today. Decided I was just going to yank it because it looked so bad, and to my surprise it is covered w/ small lime green caterpillars. I also have quite a large area in my yard devoted to butterflies (nectar and host plants) but have never heard of watercress being a host plant. Any idea what I could be killing? They have stripped the leaves clean, so if they are butterfly larva they are not going to survive. If they are something else, I don't want them moving on to any of my other plant. The hail has caused enough damage! :) Sorry, I don't have a picture at this point. Any ideas? Thanks so much! Melissa |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by frankielynn 7 (My Page) on Wed, Jul 21, 10 at 22:19
| It could be a White cabbage butterfly. They have water cress listed as a larval food and they are green. See- http://www.njsacc.org/celebrateafterschool/butterflyGarden.pdf page 14. |
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- Posted by goodkarma_ 5b (My Page) on Thu, Jul 22, 10 at 0:28
| Frankielynn what great info! I have the most watercress I have ever grown and coincidentally (or not) have beautiful white cabbage butterflies in the yard. More then ever before. Now I know why. :) |
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- Posted by mbhoneybee63 5 (My Page) on Thu, Jul 22, 10 at 20:29
| I think you are right! I am going to have to find more watercress...oddly enough, not the easiest thing to find! Thanks for the input! |
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