In my garden they like anything that gains them access to fresh plant growth, particularly at a critical stage!
I was thinking more of where they like to hide. There is some argument that they like the underside of wooden planters. They love damp logs, being under plastic pots, dead leaves. Pulling up a thin silver bich trunk that was acting as bed edging, I found hundreds of them coating the underside, against damp earth and the ground there was full of eggs.
I don't suppose rusted metal bed edging would "put them off" but I don't know if they would snuggle against it as much. It might taste pretty bad. As someone has commented above, the change in temps would be greater than for wood, which might be pretty stable. And potentially rusted metal is harder to move over than, say, plastic.
Yes, I think that's a good point, metal may be too cool for comfort in winter time whilst wood, plastic and organic material may have better thermal/insulating qualities. Wood and organic material would also contain more water and remain cooler in summer. Not sure how plastic fits into this!
Posts
🤪
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border