Yardening 5- jan 2014, in the snow

I have a huge problem with slugs eating seedlings. Now that I'm thinking about it, that's probably what happened to my wintersown seeds last year.

Why don't they eat the weed seedlings!

Slugs also devour brunnera.

Speedie, can you report back to us if you try this?

I will definitely be trying it, so I sure will report back, absolutely! Especially since you mentioned the Brunnera. I installed one the end of this past Summer (another rescue from work, and my first Brunnera ever), and I'm really hoping it comes back this Spring. If/when I start to see signs of life around it, the whole area will be getting an ammonia drench.

I think what I'm going to do this year is hold back one Hosta as a 'control' and not use the drench on (the soil around) it, but I will regularly use the drench on the others... will be interesting to see what differences I notice.

Ugh...well the Loblolly is down again but this time there's nothing I can do about it. You can't really shake off ice. I was going to put a 5' step ladder under it to support it but it was too heavy for me to lift up and put the ladder under. I suppose I'll let nature up to it's own devices. Hopefully it doesn't get windy. It's really amazing what a tree can go through. I never would have imagined it would be able to bend like it is.

Speedie here is a six step slug control plan from this site
http://www.allaboutslugs.com/6-step-plan-to-control-slugs/


"6 Step Plan to Control Slugs

How to Get Rid of Slugs or Snails in Your Garden: the 6 Step Plan

By following the steps below you can eliminate most slug or snail damage and grow a great garden. Slug control is a matter of changing a few habits, timing our attacks and using a few common tools.

1. Clean up. Slugs love cool, dark and moist spots under boards, piles of leaves, old nursery pots, weedy areas and low hanging leaves at the base of plants. Eliminate as many hiding places as possible throughout your garden. Trim off any leaves that touch the ground. Use footers to raise your containers several inches off the ground to keep things dry. Break up large dirt clods. Finally, move the compost pile away from the garden. Compost is great stuff but it can be a slug haven, especially before it breaks down.

2. Go on Slug Patrol. Getting out in the garden and actually removing the guilty culprits can be a very effective tactic. Early morning, late evening or any rainy day makes for good hunting. During dry weather watering a few hours before will help bring them out of their hiding spots. Ideally, handpicking should be done daily at first. Once the population is under control a weekly mission should be enough. To make collection easier you can attract them to a few spots by setting out their favorite foods. Slugs and snails go crazy for citrus or melon rinds, small piles of oatmeal or bran, moistened dry dog food and of course shallow pans of beer.

Boards can also be placed around the garden with one edge elevated by a stone or clod. Any offenders hiding beneath can be collected or squished. Wear gloves while searching and plop all finds in a bucket of soapy water. We consider this the most humane disposal method but slugs can also be sliced, crushed or sprayed with diluted ammonia. Just don’t spray that ammonia directly on any plants. Remember that for every slug eliminated you have not only stopped tonight’s damage but have also stopped the damage of all future generations.

3. Irrigate in the morning. Irrigating in the morning allows plants and soil to dry out before slugs come out at night. Studies show that the simple act of watering in the morning instead of the evening can reduce slug damage by 80%.

4. Use slug & snail bait. The new generation of slug baits is effective, tasty to slugs and best of all not toxic to children, pets and wildlife. Old style baits, which are still commonly available, are based on a chemical called metaldehyde. This chemical woks well enough if you carefully follow directions but it can be very dangerous to children, wildlife and pets. Dogs are especially attracted to the pellets and will seek them out even if scattered around the garden.

Baits developed in the last few years are based on iron phosphate, a compound not really toxic to anything except slugs and snails. Once they eat this bait slugs will stop feeding and then crawl away to die a few days later. Iron phosphate baits are available under several trade names including Sluggo and Escar-Go!

Iron phosphate baits will stay intact for a week or two before they break down. If you protect the bait from rain and irrigation with a board or overturned margarine container it will last even longer.

Irrigate before applying bait to bring slugs and snails out of hiding. Then scatter bait near walls, fences, decks and any moist, protected area. Sprinkle bait between that patch of tall weeds and your newly planted beans then apply a bit around any young or especially tender plants.

Timing is key to achieving the most effective control. Apply baits in the spring and early summer when slugs and snails are most active. Then apply again when egg-laying starts with the autumn rains.

5. Use barriers around tender plants. Use diatomaceous earth, lava rock, ashes, copper wire, hair clippings or anything rough or abrasive to slow them down. It’s surprising what slugs are able to crawl over but at least barriers will encourage the little munchers to go elsewhere – like the slug collection stations you have set up.

6. Encourage predators. Garter snakes, frogs, toads, rove beetles, firefly larva, shrews, birds, racoons, skunks and hedgehogs (if you live in Europe) will all eat their share of slugs and snails. Ducks are champion slug eaters but they will also eat tender seedlings so they are best kept out of the garden during the spring. Encourage these predators by minimizing the use of pesticides and providing rock piles for snakes or damp shady spots for toads and frogs.

Rove beetles, often found in compost piles, are great for devouring smaller slugs as well as their eggs. You can encourage them by adding plenty of compost and mulch to your soil.

Remember, there is no magic bullet to eliminate all slugs from your garden but by following the steps above you can significantly reduce their damage. In the case of ornamental plants there are plenty of options that slugs and snails won’t touch with a ten-foot pole. We love marigolds too but a nice Rudbecia (Black-eyed Susan) is just as lovely and much less attractive to our slimy friends."

I do 2, 3, 6, and 1 and when I see slug damage on one plant I go hunting for the culprit who is usually nearby sleeping it off! Going on a slug hunt is as much fun to me as looking for nitecrawlers as a kid for an early morning fishing trip. My yard has been in pretty good slug balance for a long time now.

I read through the link as well. Interesting....

I may drench some areas that I KNOW are slug "nurseries"....like inside and under
my ceramic bird-bath base. Also--under my concrete bird bath that sits on
an old log. I lift these up--and there is a whole slug family underneath.
I have a small area by my shed that I have some bricks and pavers on the ground--
on top of which I keep some pots of Mint. Same thing there...like a Holiday Inn for slugs...

I know my mind is always willing--but when the growing season comes--there is
so much to do that all these other things seem to fall between the cracks..
I forget too--even if, like right now, I wrote on a slip of paper about the Ammonia for slugs.
G.

Gita, that same 'container of soapy water' we use to dispose of stink bugs (BMS) can be used for slugs. Slugs don't drown as rapidly as BMS and may have to be stirred down under. If I use a splash of Lysol concentrate slugs die quickly

ssg When we plant seedlings out in garden, we often do so wiyh a protective collar (3 x 5 card paperclipped in circle) to protect from cut worms...this could protect from slugs, too. On one of the wintersowing foeum threads one person uses empth toilet paper rolls in her containers. fills soil to within an inch of top and sows 2-4 seeds per roll. Says rolls hold up and make it easier to separate seedlings and whats left of roll disintegrates pretty well once planted out. If you do this roll thing it would already be collared/protected when planted out. copper sheets and slugs don't mix as the slime and copper give the slug a shock when contact is made.

Speedie, raising your containers a bit off soil will lessen vole damage as well .

Jeff, I had one tall shrub bent by mucho ice spring back upright suddenly and scratch my face! If I do ice/snow removal I start with any branch tips and work my way back to main trunk so if it springs back it won't be loaded with ice chunks or unduly held prisoner by them either. Release weight/pressure on most stressed parts. I once did the step ladder for support and even tied it to the trunk. In my case right where the ladder was where the trunk broke! Might hae been better to place ladder further out to make a softer shorter landing for ice ladden plant than bending to the ground.

..just to add to coleup's advice on making a collar around plants for cutworms---
the collar has to be 1" below soil level to keep them from "doing their thing"...
as they DO live underground....

Thass it!...G.

I'm impressed Judy, thank you!!! I will print out the entire list and keep it in my "indoor gardening workshop area" for reference in the Spring. These are all VERY easy things to do!! There's never beer in the house (nor will there be), but I can get my hands on D.E. very easily. I already have a good collection of hair, which I use to deter squirrels, so I can simply add more of that as well.

I'll probably use a bucket of salt water to dump the pests into when hunting.. unless... would Murphy's Oil Soap work too? I've got that instead of Lysol. ;)

Gosh, you two and your ice-laden trees and shrubs, you need to be careful!! Wear your eye protection!! 0_O

I have created slug barriers for individual plants by cutting those small plant containers that nursery-grown plants come in into circa 2" high strips, wrapping copper tape around the strips, then placing them over the plants and pushing them a little bit into the ground.

I make bigger plastic barriers for groups of seedlings (e.g. beans) by cutting strips from big plastic containers of salad, etc.

You can also wrap copper tape around planters; it looks kind of nice. Copper tape is not dirt cheap : ), so I save these little homemade slug deterrents. As far as I can tell, copper tape is effective for years.

OK, ammonia and Lysol going on to shopping list. Hmmm... maybe a bucket of ammonia water would work too? ;)

Wonder where around here I can find copper tape... will do some searching around.

Edited to ask: Muddy, what size (width) of tape do you use? I see on amazon that they've got several choices of width, would want to get something that doesn't look too bad on the pots that I have but will actually work well. Thank you! :)

This message was edited Feb 6, 2014 6:49 AM

So far, I've bought the tape at Merrifield Garden Center. They sell a package of circa 1 1/4 inch tape for 9.99. I don't know how many feet it is, though.

I just found "Corry's 15 ft. Slug and Snail Copper Tape" online:
Home Depot sells it for 7.42, Lowe's for 6.89 and Walmart for 7.06. ....forget Merrifield !

I haven't tried narrower tape.
The secret to having it look nice is wrapping it around pots, planters etc. very slowly to avoid creases. I put it on the bottom and it hardly shows, especially after it tarnishes.

Hm how about copper tape for stained glass work? My roomie used copper tape with one side sticky. 1/2 inch wide maybe?

Hmmm... now that I think about it, and what it's actually made for, I wonder if DH would be able to find some for me at the supply house he gets his stuff from for work? Worth a try!

Sally, I would guess (based on NO knowledge at all) that, as long as it's 100% pure copper it should work. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Narrower tape might work, at least with baby slugs. It's worth a try. The only reason I hesitate is that if it worked just as well, the slug tape manufacturers would sell narrower tape for the same price because copper is so expensive.

I'm definitely going to have to do some reading into this.

I've read reviews on different sizes of the tape at amazon, and many people claim that it didn't work... but I wonder if maybe there were already slugs within the area they were taping off... ya know what I mean? In essence, they were 'fencing' the slugs INTO the spot that they were trying to protect, but they didn't even realize it.

Planning and organization is definitely in order here!

ssg: Thanks for the heads up about brunnera and slugs -- that might explain why my success with brunnera has been limited -- I have lots of slugs.

I know you all know this--but sprinkling Diotomaceous Earth around
susceptible plants will keep slugs off of them. They cannot cross this powder
without cutting their soft undersides to shreads. it IS silica (glass)...

HD has it in an descent-sized bag for $8.99. Look in Aisle #1.
G.

I can say that the tape works 100% when used around the base of pots and other planters. My daughter wanted to grow marigolds, so I put them in planters after giving up on the in-ground option. It also worked when I cut 2-inch rings from the top of black plastic pots and wrapped tape around them to protect slug salads; e.g. dahlias and bean seedlings.

Tape barriers won't work if the plants' leaves touch the ground outside the barrier, and might not work as well if slugs can reach the leaves by crawling up neighboring plants (although that has never been a problem in my garden).

As I think about it, I might try covering plastic edging with tape to make a barrier around my beds and replace all of the pine bark mulch in them in case there are eggs. I can kill slugs that hatch with triple phosphate fertilizer. It would be so nice to have a permanent solution!

Gita, diotomaceous earth might not work in my flower bed because I use pine bark nugget mulch and as soon as it rains, the nuggets will cover it.

Question about the ammonia drench - does it kill worms too or are they deep enough to be protected?

muddy--

Do you use the triple Phosphate fertilizer dry--as is--or do you dilute it
in water and use it as a drench?
G.

I use it dry. The slugs eat it just as they do those organic slug killers.
It also makes the plants grow better and flower more!

I just stopped by Merrifield Garden Center to get some systemic fungus gnat killer and saw that they have bags of Bonide Iron Phosphate plant fertilizer in granular form. I decided to buy it online but cannot find it. That must be where I found it in the first place; maybe they're just selling old stock.

If I were the cynical type : ) I would say they stopped making it in lieu of liquid iron phosphate because it was cutting into their sales of slug bait.

This message was edited Feb 7, 2014 1:15 PM

I've got crocus and snowdrop blooms! The buds aren't fully open yet, though.

The hellebores are still not open all the way.

Crocus. WHA?
My ground was all thawed the other day.
I forgot to check for snowdrops. But no crocus here yet.

Sally, they're actually about a week or two later than last year!

My backyard is very sunny and squirrels don't dig back there.

wow, how nice! Enjoy!!
My mom's yard had a sunny side yard with a slope, also good for early bloom.

There's new green growth on my primroses!

I need to do a walkabout.

My yard still looks barren. Maybe I need to take a magnifying glass.

Gita, Sorry I didn't notice you asked about Triple Phosphate Fertilizer. I didn't know this, but Ssgardener explained that Triple Phosphate doesn't have Iron phosphate in it, which is what kills slugs. So don't buy Triple Phosphate to kill slugs (it's still a great fertilizer, though)!

muddy--
I mostly asked because I think I have a bag of it....just sitting around....
just need to see it that is what you all were talking about...

G.

Gita, I did suggest triple phosphate awhile ago because I thought it worked against slugs in my yard. Turns out it shouldn't have worked, because it doesn't have iron phosphate in it....I just didn't want you to waste your money based on my bad tip!

After reading that earthworms also apparently eat slug bait, I'm going to try the cornmeal trap suggested here (in addition to beer): http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Garden-Slugs

Lost four hellebores. I think the last freeze is what got them. One thing that's nice though is the crocuses surrounding the Old Blush rose are peeking through. I think I lost all the artichokes. What a bummer! I'm praying they make it. They're on the south side of the house and right against the wall so the crowns may have made it. I dearly hope so. I just finished with my last patient when the snow started now falling now there's about a two inches on my deck. Good l-rd I want spring to come!

Bummer!

I had three scabiosa, I think they are, started from seed last spring, hoping for bloom the coming year, and hanging in there pretty good...till this week, now looking dire.
1/2 inch here..

Oh no! I thought hellebores were very cold hardy.

Oh no Yehudith, I'm so sorry to hear about your Hellebores!! Yeah, like Ss said, I thought they were very cold hardy as well. Gosh I hope so, 'cause I'm really hoping mine will make it. < =/

No snow down here, and I'm pretty sure we won't get any at all. I think I did see about 42 flakes earlier out the kitchen window, but they left.

It was snowing pretty hard an hour ago--laying too--maybe 2-3".
It just started at 4:30PM--and by the time I left work at 5PM--it was white all over
and coming down hard. Now it has stopped....

Yehudith--
Did you look down in the Hellebores into the soil level? You may have some buds
buried down there. I looked at mine 2 days ago--and felt with my fingers--
and the buds were there.
Don't give up the ship yet! Gita

We lost power from Tuesday to Friday afternoon, now I am working for a week so I don't know if I will get caught up with all the threads.
Sequoiadendron, Sorry to hear about the Loblolly. I have some broken branches on the white pine and a big one on the Norway Spruce. The White Birch is completely bent over so that the top is touching the ground I have some pics to post if I get a chance. Hope you weathered the storm well.

Here are my bent over evergreens in the huge snow storm we had in Feb. 2009
These never straightened up and, eventually, were cut down--the roots dug up--
and the following year--this is the bed where the raises bed was built upon.

BUT--in all that snow--the Wintersweet bloomed away....
G.

making new thread….go here
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1349926/

This message was edited Feb 10, 2014 8:16 AM