A while back I asked our neighbour (the King Of Ivy) to please trim the Buddleia in his front garden as it was starting to invade our space and to cut out all of the light to our sitting room. I was slightly aghast to come home yesterday and find that he’d hired someone to come and completely decimate the bush. The lovely Buddleia, rather than just being pruned a bit so that the butterflies that rely on it for sustenance, had been cut right back down to the ground. And I’m paralysed with guilt. So much of our South West London neighbourhood is poured concrete or decked that to have been instrumental in removing another foodstuff for these lovely creatures is really upsetting. So, the moral of the tale? Be careful what you wish for. And given that our back garden is for food for us, and the front food for wildlife, I’m going to get cracking on replacing it with butterfly-friendly plants of my own this weekend.
Below: Before and after photos showing the Buddleia conspicuous in absentia. (Ignore the floorboards, we had a massive renovation project going on to repair our Victorian floors when the first photo was taken).
London to Land Girl 