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Box (Buxus) moth - trap now

AJB Temple

AJB Temple

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If you have Box hedging or topiary, and have not already got your pheromone traps out, then crack on. They have arrived a few weeks early and we caught our first ones last night.
 
They are Asian moths. The females lay eggs on Box shrubs, which hatch into caterpillars. These create white webbing through the plant and they eat the leaves voraciously down to brown stalks. An entire plant can be consumed within 24 hours. Does not necessarily kill the plant, though they look dreadful. Not the same as box fungus.

The pheromone traps attract and kill the males (in soapy water). Very effective. About £16 per trap with 4 lures to last the season.

No idea if they have reached where you are Mark (they have spread all across Europe so I doubt you are not in the zone), but if there is an infestation in a garden within a few miles of you, then it is only a matter of time. We are 10 miles from Sissinghurst which has a lot of Buxus, and they have been dealing with it for a few years now. It has certainly spread to RHS and NT properties well north of London.

if you are at risk it is also worth getting your hands on the box moth spray which you use if you get an infestation. Readily available on line (and half the price in Germany).
 
TrimTheKing":3ux22mei said:
What are these things? I have box hedging outside and not seen any issues, are we too far North, or pure luck?
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Here you go, Mark. Everything you wanted to know about this (once notifiable but now too late!) pest.

https://planthealthportal.defra.gov.uk/ ... ar2011.pdf

I think we both may be far too North or too cold.
 
RogerS":fw2r1k64 said:
I think we both may be far too North or too cold.
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Well.....it's in Fife and Edinburgh and has been since 2019 and has been recorded in the Cairngorms. That's quite a bit further North than both of you guys. It only needs 15C in the season for larvae to mature.

However, I'm not being alarmist and the risk must be less up north. I live in Kent obvs where it is warmer and the damn things thrive as they have been here for 15 years apparently. We had not seen them until 2 years ago (there are no ornamental gardens very nearby so we are isolated in that respect) and they went through our garden inside a week - oddly enough spotted by a visitor on a garden open day. Lots of damage within 2 days. So it is worth being prepared as the synthetic pheromones keep well in the freezer.
 
Thanks both, I’ll have a read. I got attacked by (well not me personally, but a lovely fir shrub we have in the garden) a couple of years back by a plague of sawfly larvae which ate 2/3 of the damn thing in the course of 2 days! We managed to kill the buggers and they didn’t come back, but I’m paranoid now!

The shrub recovered fin but was bald for a season!
 
AJB Temple":1iedyeyk said:
RogerS":1iedyeyk said:
I think we both may be far too North or too cold.
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Well.....it's in Fife and Edinburgh and has been since 2019 and has been recorded in the Cairngorms. That's quite a bit further North than both of you guys. It only needs 15C in the season for larvae to mature.

However, I'm not being alarmist and the risk must be less up north. I live in Kent obvs where it is warmer and the damn things thrive as they have been here for 15 years apparently. We had not seen them until 2 years ago (there are no ornamental gardens very nearby so we are isolated in that respect) and they went through our garden inside a week - oddly enough spotted by a visitor on a garden open day. Lots of damage within 2 days. So it is worth being prepared as the synthetic pheromones keep well in the freezer.
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Didn’t we have this conversation about 2 years ago? Yes, box moth has been found in Scotland. No it isn’t a widespread problem.

You may remember we have a rather extensive box knot garden, and about 1 km of box edgings all around the walled garden. Our chap who trims it all two or three times a year says it isn’t something to be worried about. As yet, I suppose.

Two things spring to mind: the locations where the moth has been found in Scotland (excluding the Cairngorms finding, of which I had not heard) are coastal. More temperate than us – our Borders place is about as far from the coast as you could be.. And we are at about 300m elevation on a windswept hillside by a dark Scottish lake (sort of sounds like a line from Synchronicity II).

15 degrees c. Well, we might get that in the summer. For a day or two. And then I’ll get sun-burned.

I’m not disparaging your warning, and things may change, but it really isn’t a problem up here just now.
 
Yes we did. And I remember your lovely knot garden. As I said I was not trying to be alarmist and Scotland is barely invaded yet. But a lot of us live South of the London divide and the dratted moth is a real pest. The reason I mentioned it is that we were late on the case last year and this year it is 5 weeks earlier. :o
 
Thanks for the warning, Adrian. I guess one of the advantages of living out in the countryside with no neighbours is that it would be a very lucky box moth which just happened to find us, many miles from the nearest box hedge.
 
That's what we thought! You have been to our house and so far as we know we are the only house in our lane (surrounded by fields) with any box at all. So we thought we were safe! Especially as we have bats in abundance. The advantage of a £16 trap is it will tell you if they are in the area as it is very good at catching the distinctive males.
 
AJB Temple said:
There's never just one.....
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Oh I am sure about that. Still mulling over next actions. I have not used any pesticides since we came here. We have healthy populations of birds nesting and have never suffered from white of black fly. Too late for the pheromone traps I think.
 
No. It is not too late. The males will fly through into August. There tends to be two distinct seasons. You can hand pick now, and if you don't you will lose a lot of leaf within a few days. Always on the underside.

What I did when we got an infestation, was get my jet washer out and thoroughly wash the buxus trying to get right underneath. Then I used the chemical that is formulated (by German company) for box moth caterpillar. Sprayed on they will be dead in 2 days and it is very effective. But will return in late summer if you don't take action.

There is no effective treatment currently other than the above chemicals, so if you want to be chemical free then replace the buxus. Once they are in your area you need to accept that they will return seasonally.
 
PS Pheromones will not catch 100% of males, but do get the vast majority. It's worth having a supply of Xentari to hand. Quite cheap in EU.
 
A quick hi-jack, so not to start a new thread.

My one cycad decided to sprout a second set of leaves this summer.
Looked very good.
The new leaves were nearly same length as the old ones, then one day looked very ill.

WormDamage.jpgCycadWorms.jpg

Investigated and found worms!

Treated them to a dose of ant poison. The whole plant and also the other 3 plants.
It is the grey Lehmani, one of the offspring from what we bought in 1980.
It has a sucker on the side which also sprouted new leaves, but looks ok
 
Of my 4 box hedges only the one on the right has been badly attacked
20240409_150922_resized.jpg

It is also the only one that was overgrown with forget-me-knots which I have now ripped out. I have also cut back the worst of the damaged plants in preparation of the Xentari stuff arriving later in the week. I figured by cutting out the damaged areas the spay will have a better coverage inside the plant.
20240409_150958_resized.jpg

I have also now ordered the pheromone traps . It has taken 17 years to get those plants to that state all from a few cuttings we bought from the UK. I would hate to lose them now.🤞
 
Did you pick off the caterpillars and jet wash from underneath? You may have got lucky and avoided much damage to the adjacent ones. Maybe you could consider getting some fertiliser under the plants and if there are any young buds left you might get regrowth this season.
 
I had a good look and did not find any more. They grow quite vigoursly without any fertiliser but I will put some growmore down anyway.
 
Over 20 of the blighters found last weekend. Pheromone trap now hung up. Xentari, a bio pesticide ordered and after a prune and cutting out of the worst bits has been sprayed. Spray nozzle was plunged into the hedges every 6" and rotated 180 degrees as well as a thorough drenching of the surfaces. Will repeat in a week and have set a reminder to renew the pheromone monthly until Sept. Growmore also added to help regrowth.


The first and worst affected hedge was heavily overgrown with forget-me-nots.
20240417_105045_resized.jpg

The second hedge was less overgrown but has also been given more room to breath
20240417_105103_resized.jpg

The third hedge less affected
20240417_105120_resized.jpg
The forth only slight nibbling in the middle
20240417_105135_resized.jpg

Fortunately from the front the damage is barely visible
20240409_150922_resized.jpg

Fingers crossed that these will recover as I do not have the patience to take new cuttings and wait the dozen or more years for them to grow to a useful height.
 
Well done Andy. You are not alone.

The treatment will work.

Box can be got from cutting to a 30cm ball in three years in good compost and with regular foliar feed . You could easily get 50cm hedges in 5 years. Next time you are over have a look at the box alternatives we are also trying. Some are extremely vigorous (annoyingly so as they need cutting every few weeks).
 
And the treatment has worked along with a daily search and removal of any caterpillars.
This was the worst of the 4 hedges. Plenty of new growth. Full recovery expected.
20240624_114405_resized.jpeg
 
The little blighters get everywhere. I've got fresh pheromone traps out but not caught any summer moths so far. We had a small amount of damage here and there in spring but the head gardener, aka wifey, was on it double quick. Interestingly, although the Monty of Don amateur garden guru was all for digging out box, we've been to a few super impressive gardens in Kent lately where they have a lot of box and have kept both blight and moth at bay and have no intention of replacing the plants. For example Walmer Castle Gardens near Deal is superb. The garden team there have lots of low box and they have opened up the sides a lot to get airflow through as they had both pests. The tops are looking very healthy and the sides are sprouting again. Our own experience in recent years has been that the east side of plants is much more afflicted in our garden, suggesting the female moths are either blown in from that way, or morning sun is a trigger.
 
Just to say I did get hit last year and ended up having to massacre the front off the hedge to get rid of them.

They’re recovering now and hopefully will be full again within a couple of months but I put my pheromone trap out two weeks ago.

No signs of capture as yet…
 
Our traps have just gone out. It's been too cold here for activity until now but it's almost spring and will hopefully warm up.
 
Ah yes, could be.

Yep, it's rock and roll lifestyle I lead! Two weeks of holiday to use up before the end of the month so I took it off to do home jobs and exercise. So far this week I've done a lod of car check and topped up fluids/tyres etc, jetwashed the patio, changed 6 light fittings for new ones, done about 8 loads of laundry, tried in vain to fix the washer dryer whose door has spat the dummy, done 2 tip runs and a few other bits! LTD indeed...
 
AJB Temple said:
Our traps have just gone out. It's been too cold here for activity until now but it's almost spring and will hopefully warm up.
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We had a massive attack last spring, and we thought that that would be the end of our little ornmental front garden. They attacked probably 40 box plants. They'd fully recovered by the end of summer, and are looking fine now. The box in the back garden were unaffect, and our theory is that this was because our chicken roam around there, and likely ate all the caterpillars.
 
Mike G said:
We had a massive attack last spring, and we thought that that would be the end of our little ornmental front garden. They attacked probably 40 box plants. They'd fully recovered by the end of summer, and are looking fine now. The box in the back garden were unaffect, and our theory is that this was because our chicken roam around there, and likely ate all the caterpillars.
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You going to try and pre-emptive defences this year Mike, or just ride it out?
 
People who grubbed out all of their box were, in my opinion, premature. (Monty Don - I' talking about you!). Troy, the head gardener at NT Sissinghurst not far from us, has extensive box in the much visited white garden there, and uses pheromone traps. The low ornamental hedges there have recovered very well. It is such a cheap measure that it makes little sense not to use it. It is not 100% effective but helps a lot.

As Mike says I think chickens probably do help as they are voracious bug catchers. We actively feed small birds in our garden, and last year we noticed that they will pick through the low growing ornamental shrubs.
 
TrimTheKing said:
You going to try and pre-emptive defences this year Mike, or just ride it out?
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Not sure, Mark. The head gardner visits a nursery most weeks at this time of year, so she'll maybe have a chat with them next time and see what they've got.
 
Spotted the first few caterpillars today, I'll be spraying at the weekend.
 
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