Hostas are lovely. Unfortunately snails and slugs love them too, for their dinner. So you might want to sprinkle some slug pellets around the hostas. A band of copper tape around the pot works well too, you can get both at garden centres..
Tracy you can use a pallet for a cheap cold frame, very easy to build the lid is the only cost, unless you can scrounge some old windows from somewhere. All my cold frames are home built and being wood the insulating properties are very good. it's worth a try as most commercially available frames are between £30 and £40 quid for a standard 1000 x 500mm.
Tracey, do make sure that you've covered the hostas with a thick slug-repellent layer before snails and slugs start feasting on the new growth. I use lots of crushed dried egg-shell as a sort of mulch around the plant tips, which grow happily through the scratchy mulch.
If you try slug pellets, remember that those disintegrate when repeatedly wetted, so watering (or getting rain on) your plants would entail constantly replacing the pellets.
Hostas are lovely. Unfortunately snails and slugs love them too, for their dinner. So you might want to sprinkle some slug pellets around the hostas. A band of copper tape around the pot works well too, you can get both at garden centres..
Please use slug pellets only if you really must! Which in my book is never. They are very poisonous to wildlife and you, not to mention the now poisonous slugs that have eaten them will harm frogs, birds, hedgehogs, etc, anything that eats them. I personally think, they should be banned, is anything in your garden worth killing a bird over? Not in mine thanks. I have a hosta in my front garden, I put gravel around it and have a very wildlife friendly garden and I can honestly say I've never noticed a problem with any leaves being eaten. If you attract wildlife and don't kill it, it will eat all the pests for you.
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They look like hardy geranium to me, so will be fine outside, if in doubt, in a cold frame.
A sheltered corner outside - a cold frame would be ideal
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
No cold frame I'm afraid, that's next on my wish list. Sheltered corner it is, I have the ideal place. Thank you for replying
They'll be fine Tracey
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks Dove, outside now along with the Hostas so will see how they get on. Thanks for your help
Hostas are lovely. Unfortunately snails and slugs love them too, for their dinner. So you might want to sprinkle some slug pellets around the hostas. A band of copper tape around the pot works well too, you can get both at garden centres..
Tracy you can use a pallet for a cheap cold frame, very easy to build the lid is the only cost, unless you can scrounge some old windows from somewhere. All my cold frames are home built and being wood the insulating properties are very good. it's worth a try as most commercially available frames are between £30 and £40 quid for a standard 1000 x 500mm.
Tracey, do make sure that you've covered the hostas with a thick slug-repellent layer before snails and slugs start feasting on the new growth. I use lots of crushed dried egg-shell as a sort of mulch around the plant tips, which grow happily through the scratchy mulch.
If you try slug pellets, remember that those disintegrate when repeatedly wetted, so watering (or getting rain on) your plants would entail constantly replacing the pellets.
Please use slug pellets only if you really must! Which in my book is never. They are very poisonous to wildlife and you, not to mention the now poisonous slugs that have eaten them will harm frogs, birds, hedgehogs, etc, anything that eats them. I personally think, they should be banned, is anything in your garden worth killing a bird over? Not in mine thanks. I have a hosta in my front garden, I put gravel around it and have a very wildlife friendly garden and I can honestly say I've never noticed a problem with any leaves being eaten. If you attract wildlife and don't kill it, it will eat all the pests for you.
Jim, I don't use slug pellets at all and have mixed coffee grounds with fine egg shell (as recommended on another thread somewhere). So far so good