i love my Hostas but so do the slugs and snails in my garden which is snail city! I was advised that blue/green varieties fare better and so do those with tougher leaves. I have found this to be true (but even my pygmy blue one with really thick tough leaves has succumbed to the slugs) but for my other more tender varieties I find I have to use pellets. Does anybody have any good tips for how to deal with these wretched pests?
Regular applications of wildlife friendly slug and snail pellets. Start on Valentine's Daya s it's easy to rememebr and scatter a few pellets very thinly about your susceptible plants - hostas, hemerocallis, clematis etc - and repeat weekly throughout spring and into early summer and then again as needed.
This routine gets them as they emerge from hibernation or hatch from eggs and stops them before the eat your treasures and have the chance to breed. Works for me.
This system also leaves alone the slugs elsewhere in the garden that do an important job of recycling waste matter and feeding hedgehogs. Nematodes would work too but are expensive maybe so best concentrated on hostas in pots. Copper tape around pots and susceptible plants in borders is also supposed to be good but is also expensive.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
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i love my Hostas but so do the slugs and snails in my garden which is snail city! I was advised that blue/green varieties fare better and so do those with tougher leaves. I have found this to be true (but even my pygmy blue one with really thick tough leaves has succumbed to the slugs) but for my other more tender varieties I find I have to use pellets. Does anybody have any good tips for how to deal with these wretched pests?
Regular applications of wildlife friendly slug and snail pellets. Start on Valentine's Daya s it's easy to rememebr and scatter a few pellets very thinly about your susceptible plants - hostas, hemerocallis, clematis etc - and repeat weekly throughout spring and into early summer and then again as needed.
This routine gets them as they emerge from hibernation or hatch from eggs and stops them before the eat your treasures and have the chance to breed. Works for me.
This system also leaves alone the slugs elsewhere in the garden that do an important job of recycling waste matter and feeding hedgehogs. Nematodes would work too but are expensive maybe so best concentrated on hostas in pots. Copper tape around pots and susceptible plants in borders is also supposed to be good but is also expensive.