This spring, flowers sprang up in my front yard and grew fast, deep scalloped leaves and yellow petals. I knew them—cowpen daisies, wildflowers that appear in disturbed soil. I also knew that if I did not keep up with them, they would take over—appealing now, a shaggy, insect-ridden mess later. But life was full, and I neglected the task.
Photo by Sarah Webb
I was busy with the garden I’d planted inside the gate away from the deer and the road: peppers and cucumbers, pots and vines and sturdy plants. I enjoyed getting up early and watering the pots of green leaves, the swelling Bell peppers so green and sculptural. Small butterflies floated above my pots, lovely with black and white and a flame of orange and yellow down the wing.
One day, leaving the gate, I brushed against a daisy as tall as I was and crowded with black caterpillars. Ugh! Were they in my hair? Webbed and drying leaves made me shrink back. These would have to go!
Photo by Amanda Webb
I came back with a shovel and extracted a few of the most infested plants, ones with whole branches laden with black crawlies, but the patch filled half the lawn and caterpillars were starting all through it. Were they going to migrate into the rose bushes? into my peppers? I walked the ones I’d dug up across the road to the brush where the deer slept and left them there to propagate or be eaten. I looked uneasily at the mass that remained.
That night I sat down at my computer, worried for my garden. Would I have to get those daisies out ASAP? Black caterpillars cowpen daisies were my search terms. A result popped up immediately: If you’re lucky enough to have cowpen daisies in Central Texas, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to host the Painted Lady butterflies that they host. Images followed: my lovely butterflies, the yellow of the daisies, the spiky black caterpillars I was so alarmed about. A circle of life! exclaimed the article. The daisies fed the caterpillars who turned into Painted Ladies and laid their eggs in the drying leaves.
I went out to look, and sure enough, a hovering butterfly was a Painted Lady and the caterpillars on the elegant green leaves had stripes down their sides just like in the article. I had my own circle of life.
Photo by Sarah Webb
Here is a photo of my lovely caterpillars on my lovely daisies, which I am leaving all across my lawn.
Photo by Sarah Webb
—Sarah Webb
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