Boxy

The beetles and bugs have been surprisingly slow to come out this year, despite a fortnight of temperatures that have been closer to June's than to a normal English April. Today that weather began to break, and my scorched aucuba was suddenly and unexpectedly full of Box Bugs. According to the forecast we're about to suffer a cold week with some rain, in which case they'll have cause to wish that they'd decided to go looking for love a bit sooner.

The Box Bug is frequently cited as an example of an insect voluntarily changing its behaviour, and becoming radically more successful as a result. Only a few decades ago it was extremely rare in the UK, found only on Box Hill in Surrey, where it fed exclusively on the fruits of box trees. Then in 1990 it was discovered on Bookham Common, a few miles from Box Hill, feeding on hawthorn. By 1995 it had spread throughout the county, and over the last thirty years it has moved inexorably north and west, so that it's now found throughout most of England. Hawthorn and buckthorn are its current favourite foods, but it will eat many other things, including honeysuckle, roses, cypresses and yews. I frequently find it on ivy.

Today, as the weather gradually closed in, I vented my spleen on the garden - tidying, replanting, and mulching an entire (albeit relatively small) flower bed, and then cutting back a number of shrubs and trees that had either put themselves where I didn't want them, or were getting too big for their boots. I'm never not going to feel that I'm fighting a losing battle here, but at least now I have the tools to do a lot of clearance quickly and without too much physical stress. Never having to touch a garden tool again would be preferable, obviously, but electronic pruners and loppers do take some of the aaargh! out of eeeurgh.