I prefer nutcutlet's advice, leave it to nature and don't buy plants that the slugs enjoy. Slug pellets - nasty. Our neighbour uses them and where have all our thrush gone that thrive on the snails that eat the slug pellets, I dread to think. If I do plant slug fodder I try to plant them in large pots where the slugs don't reach so easily. Putting gravel or woodchip around a plant help to keep the slugs and snails away.
Well yes, I would normally agree 100% GD, but WHICH plants can you name that aren't enjoyed by slugs? I have found them on almost everything in my garden.
Posy, I think it entirely depends on the garden and time of year. What is devoured in mine might be untouched in yours. My bleeding heart was reduced to earth last year, not a single leaf left to show where it had been. I moved it to another bed (unprotected) and it it sprung, all tender, and hasn't had one leaf even nibbled. It's now towering (kind of) and looks better than when I bought it.
My personal theory is that slugs can be very lazy. I suspect mine stick to one small bed where at all possible - working within a 40cm square patch or less if they can. My cyclamen slugs stick to the little cyclamen spot, the giant primrose bods live within easy reach. With an easy food source to hand, why would you move?
Yes, slugs can be greedy blighters Posy - especially for small, new plants that are still trying to establish their root system in the ground. My geums, pelagoniums, roses, in fact most shrubs, primroses and family, aquilegia, rosemary and trees all appear to be of little interest to the slugs. Most bedding plants, some clematis, lupins and delphiniums don't last long with slugs about, although I avoid lupins & delphiniums completely for this very reason. If I buy plug plants in bulk I do pot them on and grow them on in the greenhouse, or somewhere that is fairly slug proof, like on a high shelf in the zip up wardrobe thing that we bought. It can be frustrating to find your new plants have been munched by slugs, but it is a lesson learnt and I try a little harder next time to outwit these slimy visitors. We are lucky to have a few hedgehogs and a frog to keep the population down.
IME, slugs leave aromatic plants alone. So that's quite a range to choose from. The drawback is that aromatic plants mostly like dry heat, so you might not be able to grow them easily if you've got the cool, damp shady conditions that favour slugs.
I've just been out on slug patrol to protect my beans. Most of the slugs seems to be busy eating the slugs I killed last night along with a whole host of other bugs cashing in on the free protein. Hopefully everyone is acquiring a taste for slug meat. I'm sure most of the slugs I'm killing aren't even interested in my beans but I'm taking no chances. Garden snails are the biggest bean munchers around here and they're curiously absent this year. I keep finding empty shells though so something is doing the hard work for me.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
15 years ago I planted a robinia frisia pseudocacia I'd received along with other trees for a significant birthday. Went out to check it one evening after a heavy downpour and found it covered in slugs which I picked off and despatched. Put some gritty stuff around it and a few pellets. The next day I got up and checked it and the slimesters had crawled up again and eaten every single leaf and bud. Ex-robinia.
P'd off doesn't begin to describe it.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
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P'd off doesn't begin to describe it.