Majeekahead's Blog

I have discovered that two of my baby Clematis have been nibbled down to the ground! HORRIBLE things, slugs & snails. My garden is too big to fight them with Nematodes, so I am afraid that little blue slug pellets have been scattered - round my Hostas, Delphiniums, Sweet peas and the massacred babies. I do hope they recover, as one is called 'Henryi' I wonder why I fell for that one?? Can't imagine, can you? I found some in the Garden Centre in March - three for £7 I think. So it's not the end of the world if they don't recover. Difficult choice for you, majeeka, but if I had precious plants e.g. Hostas I would not wait for the next batch, tho' I agree about the other plants.

Poor U Ang :( every now & then i go on slug hunt looking under the Pansies ect & i do find more baby slugs than large 1s? Arent they the most naughty slimmy things :( ihate2see my poor plants chewed 2 bits&pieces

Let battle commence. Tis the season for the slimy critters. I have used Nemaslug in the past and found it effective.

Last summer I found another product, Slug Clear, which is a liquid concentrate and when diluted with water, makes up to 75 litres. It's marketed by The Scotts Co0mpany, in Godalming, Surrey, 0879 5301010. I found that quite effective too. and cost £4.80, which is less than Nemaslug. It isn't biological thogh.

Around my hostas, I put coffee grounds and/or crushed eggshells. If you can get crushed sea shells, they are good too. Around and pots and containers, if you don't use copper bands, spray some WD40. They don't like that either.

It's the little grey/black slugs about an inch long that do the most damage. They have to grow to the size of the big fellas as quickly as possible, ready for mating.

I tried planting a jam jar with some beer in it last year, but I think I only caught a couple! :(

The slugs and snails are the least of our worries here. Yesterday I was having a cuppa with Paul when through the lounge window I caught sight of a muntjac heading for a nibble in Samantha's flower bed, Paul headed for the back door but I rapped on the window and gave it an evil look ..... it read my eyes and tripped away from the scene. This morning I noticed that the recently planted Dicentra offshoot which had got off to a good start and produced a flower bud had lost the tops of its shoots and the Bergenia has lost its new Elephant's Ears.
Last year I protected newly installed young plants with a scouring pad, the metallic ones which can be pulled to make an adjustable and suitably uncomfortable ring around individual plants to deter slugs and snails. Once the plant is sufficiently well established to afford losing the odd leaf the ring can be re-used elsewhere. (Must remember to buy another pack to protect the hostas I have just bought).

Save large pickle jars to pop over and protect young plants
save dry and crush egg shells and scatter thickly round vulnerable plants. There are organic slug pellets available now.

hi All, i have also had some young clematis nibbled spritz, but is'nt it a bit early for Hosta - mine are still under ground - well i hope they are, should they be up by now? - i will get the slug pellets out if they appear before my reinforcements. and Jac as in everything- as Ken has pointed out it is the small ones you have to watch! they are far worse than the big fat jucey ones! hi Ken how you feeling now? ok i hope, thanks for the tips i have also tried all of the above, but i wanted to try something that would be reletively hassle free but effective, and the bio control has been working really well, better than all of the other things i have tried in the past, only since the frost has it let me down. Hi Xela call me silly - what is a 'muntjac'?

hi Tussie, crushed egg shells are not that effective in my garden, the amount of slugs i had in my garden last year was unbelievable, i would need to be running a breakfast cafe to get the amount i would need! lol the jam jar idea is not a bad one but don't they live in the soil? surely they could come up from underneath? not only that but no air circulation for plants to breath unless you lift it up on one side - which would kinda defeat the object. but orgainc slug pellets yes i have some of thoughs i have them reserved in the shed ready for back up if needed, so far the damage has'nt been too bad, so will give it another couple of days and see what happens before i resort to drastic measures. Brooke is out there quite a lot now and would love to play with pretty blue things found in the soil- organic they may be - 2 year old proof they are not!

Tecnically, this problem is known as "The wee gobshites keep coming back!" If you stick to your guns regarding the nematodes that would be really useful stuff for all of us to know - but I don't think anyone would blame you for compromising. Sue and I have done the late night slug patrol in spring and picked them off and put them in salt water, but while this did seem to help it also made us feel like mass murderers - suspect that this year we are going back to beer traps. The only thing that worries us about them is won't a lot of good creepy crawlies fall into the traps as well?

I just got organic slug pellets. They have Bitrex in them as usual (for the nasty taste) but if the kids do eat them it won't harm them. Also if the birds eat slugs or snails killed by the pellets they won't be harmed either.
Will let you know how they do.

i think i am gonna try to, buzzbee, i would also like to know if this is going to be £30 well spent - i have to say up until the heavy frost we have had recently - it has been brilliant - far more effective that even slug pellets, and without the horrible mess. in fact until this week i have'nt even seen a slug since i put it down, and this time last year they were every where. so i will try to hold off on the slug pellets if i can - it should'nt be too much longer before the next batch of bio control arrives anyway! and thank for that info Maple, i did'nt know that i thought they were still a bit doggie - i'll have to check the lable on mine and make sure i have the right ones before putting them down - if i need to that is - hope not as i would rather get my 30 quids worth out of the nematodes! i'll keep ya all posted on my progress!