Someone has planted a swan plant in my garden and I was awash with remembered trauma as soon as I saw it.
We had swan plants several times when the girls were small. It always started the same way – full of hope and a sense of pride because we were doing our bit to help the butterflies. Excitement when the first eggs were laid, and even more when they hatched. The caterpillars were so cute and tiny, and the plant so big! But steadily the caterpillars grew, and the plant got whittled away, faster and faster. A slight anxiety as to whether there was going to be enough food became a certainty that there wasn’t, and difficult decisions had to be made now. Sometimes we were strong enough to perform the required genocide so that at least a few could get enough food to reach the stage of turning into a chrysalis, but more often there was a desperate last minute dash to all the plant shops around the city, trying to find more swan plants. The rumours that pumpkins could stand in at a pinch appeared to be a myth, as none of our caterpillars would ever make the switch.
And now it’s all going to happen again! And it’s out in the garden where it’ll all be unsupervised! There are already multiple eggs on it. I’m breaking out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.