The scent of privet: Country diary 100 years ago

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 31 August 1917When the heavy showers had passed, the sun burst out from behind drifting clouds, and studded the dripping hedges with diamonds. For ten yards or more privet, in full flower broke the monotony of thorn and bramble, and here fifteen or twenty red admiral butterflies fanned their gorgeous wings as they sipped the sweets. The air was heavy with the scent of privet. Golden-rod, a blaze beneath the hedge, attracted other red admirals, and amongst them were small tortoiseshells and a few peacocks. True to its name, the wall butterfly was more plentiful where rugged stone walls replaced the hedgerows, but it abounded alike in all the lanes and on the rocky outcrops, covered with ragwort, scabious, and eyebright, which are so noticeable a feature of North Wales. Privet, by the way, is troubling one of my correspondents. He finds his hedge attacked by small white grubs, which shelter in the curled and shrivelled leaves. I do not find my privets badly damaged, though a few shoots have been attacked. It is the caterpillar of one of the small leaf-mining moths, for the grubs in their earlier stages, at any rate, feed within the two layers of leaf-skin. I can only advise that he cuts off the damaged shoots and burns them so as to diminish the numbers of the moths. Continue reading...