Little and Large...

When I was young Mum would take me to the garden centre to pick some nasturtium seeds in late spring every year, and we'd sow them and wait for the plants to become big enough for the large and small white butterflies to visit and lay their eggs on the undersides of the leaves. Then i'd watch them daily, waiting for them to hatch into tiny caterpillars that would take a few weeks to reach the size when they would march off, away from the plants, to find a safe place to pupate. It was a brilliant first lesson in the workings of nature and ever since I grow some every year for the butterflies.

This year I grew 'Jewel Cherry Rose' which was meant to have flowers of a rich magenta, but instead turned out to be a luminous orange that i'm not too keen on. But I don't mind because the plants are smothered in hundreds caterpillars of all ages (as you can see here) and the eldest of which are now climbing the walls of the house to pupate under the eaves of the thatch. For some reason, the small whites seem to prefer the door frame. I'm hoping to watch at least some of them hatch in the Spring!