Kitchen Garden Forum

I have been trying to find out from books and the internet whether this winter's very low temperatures (minus 13 here at home and probably minus 14 on the allotment) might have killed off some cabbage white chrysales, but no luck. My OH thinks it's not likely, otherwise cabbage whites would have died out altogether in previous cold winters, but I just cannot image them surviving, at least not in large numbers.

Presumably, the winter will have got rid of quite a number of "bugs" anyway.

Dear Monika, i'm sure a lot of these overwintering things have a built in anti-freeze.

oldherbaceous wrote:Dear Monika, i'm sure a lot of these overwintering things have a built in anti-freeze.

Especially whitefly

Hi Monika

OH is absolutely right about "anti-freeze"

http://www.amentsoc.org/insects/fact-fi ... ering.html

Many thanks, everybody. Your link was fascinating, Alan - there is also hope, then, for our peacock butterfly which found a nook in the garage last autumn and is still there. We'll keep an eye on it when it warms up and let it loose.