Slugs have really ugly mugs.
Perhaps you've not yet had the pleasure to look one of these slimy little hosta destroyers over at eye level. If you're lucky to only have smallish examples of these garden pests it may not have occurred to you to investigate their gooey faces. It isn't that I went out of my way to study them. When faced with offing one as big as a man's thumb, the rubbery things tend to get your attention. When they're this big, you can't squash those big Gray Slugs! Common Garden Slugs are brown and are easy to do away with under your shoe. Not the thick skinned and much larger Grey Slugs, those you need to cut with a knife to murder them with your bare hands. In the Northwestern region of the US and in parts of Europe you'll find absolutely gargantuan Black Slugs that mature at 6-inches long. I, for one am thankful to live on the other side of the states. How many Hostas can a Black Slug eat in one night?
Slugs are nocturnal diners and prefer cool shady areas.
During the warmer daylight hours, you'll usually have to hunt under plants, pots and other shade providers to find these magnificent munching mollusks. If you're wondering why they are so besotted with your hosta garden, it's not just the moist, cool conditions. Slugs adore eating all kinds of broadleaf perennial leaves. Even without a hosta in the yard, you can have problems with slug damage to your landscape and garden plants. Slugs will quickly get out of control in a season with unusually wet, cloudy weather. Many is the home gardener and even those who maintain great landscape appeal, that is hungry for the secrets to keeping slugs from ruining their plants. Some old fashioned methods of control are really quite gross and others could have a bad effect on your plants.
What works best to stop slugs from devouring your foliage?
You'll see some people say to keep your hostas in pots with the bottom couple of inches submerged. This is not a wise thing to do. Hostas need some drainage and no pot can get rid of water if the drainage holes are below water level. With constant over watering, a fungus can attack hosta leaves or you can start having problems with root rot. The fungus is difficult to get under control and will spread like wildfire. Root rot is not desirable; it can kill your hosta plants. Placing gravel around your hostas and other plants is not effective in battling slugs. Nor is the notion of growing them in raised containers. Slugs crawl right up the sides of pots and planters. Sharp sand can be effective, but it will wash away in a heavy rain and blow off in stiff wind.
Using rock salt as a barrier is effective in controlling slug damage.
Salt does burn plants though and it melts away in the rain as well as under normal daily watering of your garden and plantings. Too much salt in the soil is very damaging to plants, so use this trick with some caution of over doing it. Hosta leaves are very sensitive to salt and burn easily. Then there's the age-old favorite of placing shallow containers of beer beneath and between your hosta plants. If you head over to the "Secrets of a Slug-Free Garden" from the link at the bottom of this article, you might decide this is too gross for you as a method of halting unsightly holey hosta leaves.
There are other tactics you can use in your war on slugs.
There are chemical controls, copper rings and nematodes that do work in protecting your foliage from becoming dinner to marauding mollusk machines. Some of these are too expensive to be economical in a large garden or a lean economy year. Surprisingly, there are several types of plants that can be used to create natural, constantly present barriers. Yes, even slugs have distinct taste buds and will not pass through the right herbaceous defense line. Nature is really amazing when you start learning how the Earth polices her wild inhabitants.
Get more information on keeping slugs out of your garden... Read Secrets of a Slug-Free Garden.
T. S. Clayton is a garden writer and professional landscape designer with decades of experience as a contractor and nursery grower of fine ornamental plants. Now she concentrates on words and grows online in pots and her own plots. To read more from this author through the link listed above at LostInTheFlowers.
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