Can anyone suggest ways of eradicating wild garlic from a border? The bulbs are so numerous and so tiny I can't see any way of getting rid of it but to lift the top few inches of soil, and throw everything away. Just a few tiny bulbs left hiding amongst the roots of the plants I would like to keep will just set it off again...so bare earth for a season seems like my only option. It has to come out as it is absolutely swamping everything else.
Try spreading some sharp grit or crushed eggshells around your plants. Slugs and snails hate crossing these. It's a deterrant but not a guarantee. I find pretty good. Copper tape around containers or raised beds also works. You can also get a version which can be painted on. Smear vaseline around the edges of pots or around the stems and edges of leaves also works. Combine some of these and it's pretty good and you don't have to use harmful slug pellets.
please help i have two hostas one has been eaten by slugs the other is healthy ,my question is what do i do with the hosta that has been eaten on every leave ,cut off or just let die down for winter???
i have had lots of problems with slugs and snails they always eat my lupins now i have used rocksalt ok for a while but soon gets washed away with the rain so i am going to try to make a electic fence type gadjet to try and solve the problem i will keep all posted as to its progress.
The best thing to protect your plants from slugs and snails is copper rings and copper tape. Sometimes organic slug pellets. No need for any nasty chemicals.
Re:GROWING HOSTAS I have discovered another way, and the best so far, of dis-couraging slugs and snails. Last year I got really exasperated to find new shoots being eaten to the ground overnight, only a few attracted to the slug pellets. I started throwing the snails [and a very few slugs] into an ajacent plastic box collecting rain water. I noticed quite quickly that the Hosta was growing. So...I continued collecting the snails and drowning them. Assumed other snails were aware of the dead snails and avoided plants in quite a wide area. I will try to upload a photo of the now large Hosta. Also researching for a homeopathic remedy I discovered a remedy called Helix Tosta made from toasted snail shell. I shall try that also! If anyone would like to try a free sample please email me for my address and prepare an sae with a large letter stamp.
I'm afraid I don't share your faith in the cognitive capabilities of molluscs - I think that by drowning them you were reducing the number in the area and therefore the plants were less damaged.
I choose my hostas for their slug/snail resistance, i.e. I choose varieties with tough leaves, and so far have had very little if any damage on the ones growing on the Shady Bank. I also surround the emerging spikes with coarse building sand in the spring, just to be on the safe side - that appears to be a good strategy.
More tender hostas are grown in pots on the terrace where I can keep a closer eye on marauders - I don't put their pots into other decorative pots as the gap between provides opportunity for slugs and snails to lurk.
I've not used any slug pellets of any kind in this garden, but we do have a host of birds and hedgehogs.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
So far I've been lucky too and mine are ok but then I did hose everything down with slug nematodes back in late April and I think it has done the trick.
Have also substituted my lethally toxic slug pellets (against snails) for the less harmful ferrous sulphate ones, after reading a post on here
I griow around 65 different hostas in pots, and have done for around 15 years. I nearly gave up around 6 years ago, the slug and snail problems being virtually overwhelming. I tried it all, hair, egg shells, garlic, porrige oats etc. et. ad nauseaum. Then I discovered copper tape, now each pot has its own collar of copper, and that has done the trick. I have a three tiered display, like a very large auricular theratre, and the edges of that are also trimmed with copper tape. There will always be the odd clever slug that walks up the wall and drops into the pots, but on the whole the collectiion is doing very well. I also bury odd bits of copper tubing (from a friendly plumber) around the stems of plants that are devoured by slugs, e.g delphiniums, and that has helped enormously tool. Apparently they get a small static shock from the copper and will not cross it. It was quite expensive to do at first because I had to do the whole lot at once, but now just as any new pot arrives. Do try it, it really does work.
Ferrous pellets work somewhat, but are very dangerous for children, as an overdose of iron can be lethal. They do not harm birds and other mammals as far as I know. Use them very sparingly and where they cannot be seen by small people. The other kind should be abolished at once I agree. We have no children coming to our garden so I can, and occasionally do, use these here.
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Re:GROWING HOSTAS
I have discovered another way, and the best so far, of dis-couraging slugs and snails. Last year I got really exasperated to find new shoots being eaten to the ground overnight, only a few attracted to the slug pellets.
I started throwing the snails [and a very few slugs] into an ajacent plastic box collecting rain water. I noticed quite quickly that the Hosta was growing. So...I continued collecting the snails and drowning them. Assumed other snails were aware of the dead snails and avoided plants in quite a wide area.
I will try to upload a photo of the now large Hosta.
Also researching for a homeopathic remedy I discovered a remedy called Helix Tosta made from toasted snail shell.
I shall try that also!
If anyone would like to try a free sample please email me
for my address and prepare an sae with a large letter stamp.
I'm afraid I don't share your faith in the cognitive capabilities of molluscs - I think that by drowning them you were reducing the number in the area and therefore the plants were less damaged.
I choose my hostas for their slug/snail resistance, i.e. I choose varieties with tough leaves, and so far have had very little if any damage on the ones growing on the Shady Bank. I also surround the emerging spikes with coarse building sand in the spring, just to be on the safe side - that appears to be a good strategy.
More tender hostas are grown in pots on the terrace where I can keep a closer eye on marauders - I don't put their pots into other decorative pots as the gap between provides opportunity for slugs and snails to lurk.
I've not used any slug pellets of any kind in this garden, but we do have a host of birds and hedgehogs.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
So far I've been lucky too and mine are ok but then I did hose everything down with slug nematodes back in late April and I think it has done the trick.
Have also substituted my lethally toxic slug pellets (against snails) for the less harmful ferrous sulphate ones, after reading a post on here
I griow around 65 different hostas in pots, and have done for around 15 years. I nearly gave up around 6 years ago, the slug and snail problems being virtually overwhelming. I tried it all, hair, egg shells, garlic, porrige oats etc. et. ad nauseaum. Then I discovered copper tape, now each pot has its own collar of copper, and that has done the trick. I have a three tiered display, like a very large auricular theratre, and the edges of that are also trimmed with copper tape. There will always be the odd clever slug that walks up the wall and drops into the pots, but on the whole the collectiion is doing very well. I also bury odd bits of copper tubing (from a friendly plumber) around the stems of plants that are devoured by slugs, e.g delphiniums, and that has helped enormously tool. Apparently they get a small static shock from the copper and will not cross it. It was quite expensive to do at first because I had to do the whole lot at once, but now just as any new pot arrives. Do try it, it really does work.
Ferrous pellets work somewhat, but are very dangerous for children, as an overdose of iron can be lethal. They do not harm birds and other mammals as far as I know. Use them very sparingly and where they cannot be seen by small people. The other kind should be abolished at once I agree. We have no children coming to our garden so I can, and occasionally do, use these here.