Shock, horror!

Slugs... menace to society! And beautiful gardens. There are some plants that just serve as bait, plain and simple, and cannot thrive in a garden where there are slugs (especially of the giant orange variety, thumb-knuckle sized). In my old garden, snails were the main culprits: lupins were always munched within days of planting them; hostas would last longer, but look torn, tatty and miserable; ranunculus seedlings disappeared overnight.

Somewhat unfortunately for our aesthetic sensibilities, slugs are also part of the circle of life in the Dream Garden. Everything that grows must ultimately die (and be recycled into wonderfully rich, live-sustaining compost, but that's a different blog post) - but, sometimes, beautiful plants are helped along by tiny molluscs. Some go slowly, like this once furry sage, Salvia argentea, which took weeks of steady nibbling (and despite regular slug removal - we picked off and destroyed at least 3-5 slugs every evening) to get to this skeletal form:


And then, there are overnight jobs, like with this lobelia (which can be seen on the left hand side of the rose in the previous post). I only missed one evening of watering, as the day had been damp enough, and 48 hours after seeing it in its full glory, it was gone:


Now, you may be asking what am I doing about the slug problem. Well, I pick them up whenever I see any (and usually get my SO to squish them); and I'm learning what plants they like/adore/hunger for, so I wouldn't place them in garden soil in the future. If I still want to grow those plants (as I do with the furry sage and the lemony pale hosta), I will plant them in pots which will be well protected with copper wire barriers. Copper is toxic to molluscs (this is true even for marine types) and a circle of thin electricians wire or even pennies is traditionally used to protect sensitive plants.

Slug pellets? The answer is no. They are toxic to all life, not just slugs and snails, so could be dangerous for the cats. Also, if a bird was to eat a poisoned slug it would die too... Poison pellets are definitely not environmentally friendly.