Hello gardeners! At long last, please find the recording of the latest Grow Like Wild podcast episode - the BLOOD WORM MOON! (cue scary music).

These “podcast announcement” emails are never super thrilling, so I thought I’d spice things up by including a fun friend each month for you to be on the look out for. Above is the Half Wing Moth, Phigalia titea. While they aren’t especially glamorous, they are usually the first moths of spring in the northeast.

This guy is a male and I know that because females only have tiny wings (half, if you will) and do not fly. They both overwinter as pupae in the leaves under their host trees (birch, maple, oaks and others) so leave those leaves!

Adults emerge in the first warm days of spring and have only one thing on their minds. They don’t eat, they just mate. Females lay eggs on the bark of their host trees and, when they hatch, their inchworm babies inch up the tree to eat newly emerging leaves. They can only eat those tender, new leaves. If you feed them old leaves, they’ll starve.

So keep an eye out for the halfwing moth! They aren’t beautiful pollinators but they make great bird food and let us know that spring is on the way.

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