poliphilo | Talking About Ragwort

We had a bumper crop last year. This year there's much less- and quite a lot of it has already been nibbled back to bare stalks by hungry caterpillars. Isabella Tree records a similar experience with creeping thistle: one year it threatened to take over the estate, next year clouds of painted lady butterflies moved in on it and their caterpillars ate it into oblivion. Nature, left to itself, is self-regulating.