My question: Have you used them and do they really work?
We'd rather not be putting chemicals down as our black lab surely would find it
Thanks
Linda in Victoria BC
Copper bands for (against) slugs & snails
Where do you get the copper bands and how to you put them in the garden? Sounds like something I'd like to try around my hosta beds.
I'd like to know more about this deterent too. I don't have them (knock on wood) but I know many that do. Thanks.
I seen Lee Valley sells a copper mesh length for this purpose. I have never tried it, but from what I read, the slugs don't cross it because they are sensitive to the electric current that runs thru the copper, as they slime their way across the copper. In the past, I just sent the kid out with a salt shaker. Perhaps I should invest in some copper.
hmmmmmm Jo I thought they frowned on child labour here LOL
Child labour is great in my opinion!!! LOL Okay just around my gardens LOL And only if they enjoy it hehehe!!! No problems here!
Hi Guys
I have a roll and I used it last year to protect my mini hosta's. No bites! It also did not look out of place as I used some small gravel to hold it down. I understand that the slugs slime going over the copper causes an electric current which gives the poor little gaffers a shock!
I did get it a Lee Valley tools, it comes in a 100 ft roll but is not a very big box. It was easy to cut with scissors.
I also have been thinking it would work really well as a pattern for a trellis if you had some kind of frame as you could do a big pattern with the mesh as it does have some stiffness like wired ribbon.
Ann
Wow!! Technology is wonderful, eh?
I've always just used a saucerful of beer for my slugs, but hated having to go out and empty it in the morning, because the first couple of mornings especially, the saucer would be heaped high with dead, stinky slugs. Yuck!!
This message was edited Mar 21, 2008 5:59 PM
Well it doesn't kill them, it just scares them away.
I still go out at night with a headlamp, plastic bag and kitchen tongs, which have been put into the garden shed. I am a mighty slug hunter and my neighbors laugh at me but I am slowly saving my hostas without chemicals!
Ann
I took your recommendations, that these copper bands DO work. Here they come in 10 foot lengths by 1 1/2 inches wide, for $3.50 CDN
Here's what they looked like when I bought them
here I have it around some spikey thing, I'm such a knowledgeable gardener, (not). I think it's some 'Imperialious' thing with orange flowers on the crown.
Here's a length of it before I started using it.
and this last one is around my fox lily.
Thanks again for the recommendation. I don't have kids to go out and salt them, and I'm up late enough to go out myself, I get to see the end results, so hopefully this stopps them in their tracks.
I've got to get me some of those!
If using the copper, you need to ensure that there aren't slugs already nestled in the base of the plant - a place they like to hide with Hostas and also ensure that the leaves of the plant don't touch the ground outside of the copper band or the slugs will thank you for the bridge over the copper and slime right up the leaves.
I think I have a bigger problem here with earwigs - even on my Hostas.
Ann
That's a thought, imprisoning them accidentially within the circle. Yikes. I wonder if pouring a mound of rock salt within the circle when I first set up the little copper fence around the hostas would hurt the plants?
Maybe better is a drench of 1 part ammonia, 10 parts water poured at the base of the plant. works on Hostas. I've not tried it elsewhere.
Ann
Great, I'll do the ammonia water drench. That's a much better way. Thanks, Ann.
Deborah
LOL Linda :-) That would be a Crown Imperial Fritillaria I think. Here's a pic that Theresa_in_BC posted of hers on the first thread http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=4689571
Little 1' slugs arrived here several years ago--I'd never seen them in the Chilcotin before. They have been decimating my brassicas and greens, and even started eating carrots! Things were getting desperate. I'd (ugh) pick a litre can of slugs each morning and another each evening, and still couldn't keep up. So I ordered the 100' copper mesh from Lee Valley and laid it around my main vegetable garden. The first year I tried it flat, and it worked just fine ...until the weeds grew up through it! I couldn't pull out the weeds without disturbing the mesh, and the slugs just crawled onto the weeds and crossed that way. The chickweed made an especially good highway for them.
Last year I put bamboo stakes every 10' and used it upright--that worked really well. EXCEPT I hadn't rid the inside of all the slug eggs! So it kept the outside slugs out, and the inside slugs in.
To try to deal with that, last fall when we were starting to get hard frosts I rototilled everything with my handy-dandy Manta, with the aim of turning up the eggs to the surface. And I'll do it again this spring, before I plant. That won't help around the perennials, where I can't rototill, but it sure will cut down on my handpicking! And I've ordered more mesh. I'm hoping that eventually I'll eradicate all the slugs. (Hey, isn't the definition of a gardener "unrealistically optimistic" ?)
The solid copper sheets would be good for smaller applications--you wouldn't have the weed problem-- but it is relatively expensive for large areas. And I wouldn't use the mesh as a trellis. It would be really time consuming to pick out all the old vegetation in the fall. Took me forever to clean out the chickweed.
echoes
Mar 22, 2008
I don't have too much of a problem with slugs or snails because we have a lot of frogs and toads here. When I need help controlling slugs, I use Safer's Slug and Snail Bait. It contains ferric phosphate, safe for the environment and pets.(Hope I never find out differently) You just scatter the granules around your plants. Of course in a wet climate, you would be repeating that process quite often, until you get a reduction in population.
I did check each plant for lugs & snail before putting the copper around so I hope I didn't trap of them critters.
Ginny, I did plant a couple of crown imperial fritillaira in a different spot. They have the bottom leaves growning well but no flower spike. The one in the picture, I don't remember planting but must have because last year there wasn't anything like that there.
Linda
A roll of adhesive-backed copper foil tape from your local stained glass store, is an excellent protection for anything in containers.
The Victoria store sells it for about $7 for 36 yards, and it comes in various widths. I just use what I've got on hand, which is usually 3/17ths of an inch, and that's fine.
Make sure the container is clean and dry first, and then don't take too much of the paper backing off at a time, as it tends to twist and turn and stick itself to itself, in the same maddening way duct tape does.
I've also seen a raised bed, with copper tubing (from a plumbing store; I asked) used as a decorative edge about 2" from the top. The gardener went around and gave it a scrub down with steel wool as part of her fall clean-up, since once it discolours, it isn't as pretty.
Don't know if the patina affects the effectiveness, though.
Cheryl