"I should trust my gardening skills more." and try not to kill thinks with kindness
Cape lilac, yes can be a nice tree but also a pest. I had 2 big ones in my yard, I had to kill one
One day the neighbor comes to my door, shows me a small bucket of hairy caterpillars, tells me her house is being invaded with them and suggest the hairy caterpillars are from the cape lilac tree near our joining fence.
I was skeptical but done some research, found out that these hairy caterpillars live exclusively off the leaves of cape lilac trees. in the morning the come down the tree and find some where dark to hid, neighor has a patio next to the fence where there tree was so that explained why they where going there. Also found out that when the hairy caterpillars turn in to moths the moths are attracted to light so that's why I had so many moths.
I also find out that the hairy caterpillars climb up the tree in the early evening to start feeding on the leaves, before I go further when I said the tree was huge I mean the trunk of this one is about 3 meter in circumference, so come early evening I go out to look at the tree. Bloody hell I could not believe it, the trunk of the tree was completely covered in hairy caterpillars, like you could hardly see the tree trunk for hairy caterpillars. Later that night I was out side under the tree and I could hear the hairy caterpillars munching away and droppings where raining down.
So that's my experience with the cape Lilac tree and when ever I see one the hairy caterpillars come to mind LOL
