Well, this really wasn't quite what I was intending...

I recently had to have a diseased flowering cherry cut down, leaving my front garden rather bare. I decided to replace it by planting a shrub in a large pot in the cantre of the lawn. The choice was between a Japanese maple, but I already have 3 of those in the back garden, or a buddleia. I chose the dwarf buddleia "Blue Chip" which is suitable for a pot and doesn't seed itself everywhere. I hoped to have a garden full of butterflies, preferably coloured ones.

Those of you who have read some of my other posts will know that I have been plagued with caterpillars this year, in particular one called cabbage looper, which has completely defoliated my carrots and is doing the same to the rhubarb. Maybe planting a butterfly bush wasn't quite the most sensible option. When I went outside this morning to look at the large number of "butterflies" I could see flying around the buddleia it soon became clear these were in fact moths.

A quick google of brown moth, daytime came up with several options including the Silver Y moth which is quite clearly the one I have. Guess what... its a close relative of the cabbage looper, and the Wikipedia page shows a caterpillar eating a carrot leaf.

I now have a difficult decision to make - do I leave these rather pretty brown moths to feed on my buddleia, or do I go out there and kill them because they are such a pest?