The peonies are growing strong, but it seems not all as good as last year. My tunnel with the whte lactiflore Mme. Claude Tain seems to have less stems than previous year and the sunny weather the last days has scorched some leaves, which results in botrytis of course. Fortunately the other varieties seem less susceptible. What caught my eye however was something I hadn’t seen before. Very many plants had some leaflets sticking together, and those turned out to be more susceptible to botrytis than the other leaflets. When pulling them apart I could see something like white threads and there were small dark brown caterpillars as one of the images show. Some buds had been partly eaten. I hadn’t seen this before and the only pests I’ve ever had trouble with are leaf nematodes, thus I don’t really use any insecticides as long as I don’t see any nematode damage. I’ve thus researched the issue and it turns out to be a ‘leafroller’ (aptly named as it is exactly that what it does), it’s the caterpillar stage of a small moth. This one specifically should be the ‘cabbage leafroller’ or, in beautiful Latin, ‘Clepsis spectrana’. Difficult to get rid of as the caterpillar is hard to reach with insecticides because it is so nicely hidden within those leaflets. Bacillus thuringiensis should be able to kill it and Steinernema carpocapsae is another one. We’ll see if we can get rid of;