why not share this in the hosta forum ..

afraid of us??? .. lol ...

ken

Ken, I only have 2...and I am not even that keen on them...so I tend not to visit the hosta lovers forum,

I would have hung out a bit more on the tree forum but I am only growing a handful of natives so have bugger all to contribute.

I have a lot of toads so fortunately slugs are seldom a problem.
However you are right this is a good approach. In the US the sell "slug tape" but it's rather expensive and fleeting for its intended purpose. So thin it breaks up after a couple years. I bought a roll of thick copper foil from Storm Copper (big US internet seller) and I just cut off a 1/2" X 6" strip and form a little donut with it. Unlike the tape stuff it is strong enough to stand up on its own. The slugs never cross those barriers if they do start to attack something...

Agree about hostas, I've never really seen the appeal of them in the sense of paying 50+ for some new variety that hardly looks different from some previous variety. Especially now that many of them are prone to viruses. I have a 'Royal Standard', kind of as a fond reminder of the first lady I gardened for who was very proud of her Hosta plantagineas, which are at least fragrant. (RS is a 50% H. plan. hybrid)

i am positive they would be entertained by some crackpot who filled there pots with old coins ...

especially if you gave a pic ...

you of all peeps ought to know.. any hardcore is always looking for a new method .. and genius shows up in many forms and places ... if it works.. who cares if you hate hosta.. we might name one after you ... lol ..

whatever came of the horse truck claim ... i cant recall if it was insured.. etc ... where/how are you living at the property????

ken

Nope, not living there. No power...or water - costs loads of money - and I absolutely know I am not some frontier type who would relish the offgrid idea - certainly not in chilly damp England. Still, you never know (especially now we are looking at 5 more years of insane austerity and Tory zeal - sigh). The winter night thing did for me - getting dark at 3.30pm with another 8 hours till bedtime...in candlelight.
Shuttling to and fro, running 3 gardens (badly) and trying to earn a living - very stretched.
Course we are not insured - insurers would laugh...so we just decided not to leave anything we didn't mind losing. I am loving it though - despite having no clue whatsoever what I am doing apart from winging it.

If you want inexpensive, have you tried beer for slugs? Only problem is it takes work to refill the little dishes.

Did that, Linnea and couldn't cope with the ground beetle death toll.

The war against slugs has been epic, painful and largely futile...so I am down to desperately clutching at straws.

The economists are abhorrent of keeping money out of circulation!

Ok, Campanula, I guessed you might have tried that. I didn't know beetles might be attracted to it, I only harvested slugs from mine. When I'm desperate I use a slug bait called Sluggo. Little pellets. But that's a chemical and I don't know what such things cost in the UK.

Thanks for sharing, campanula. I just wintersowed some hostas which are emerging now. I may borrow your idea!

i like the hosta-and the cactus and succulent-forum because if you're going to have a hobby i think you should be crazy intense about it. well maybe not as intense as the conifer people but serious. slugs are pushovers here in the high alpine desert but the copper penny thing sounds kool. huge hosta but is it pretty?

Amazingly, hostas still pristine. I am in full battle mode everywhere else though - nightly greenhouse patrols, often catching the culprits in the act of munching (the swine). The gigantic canine pest has also regressed - my gorgeous flourishing daphne has been 'pruned' to half size and several other pots have enormous paw sized holes in them - those that are still standing and intact, that is. She must hear a roaring voice in her pea sized brain: 'dig, dig. dig....hide, dig' - she just can't help herself. Mind you, I did some roaring of my own, waving the tattered branches at her (she fled beneath the bed).

Yeah, David, I also hang out on the antique rose forum - another bunch of obsessives - no half measures.

I will try to get the camera to work (lens error...grr, stuck, cheap crap, my fault).

you made me do it.. i linked this in the hosta forum .. ken

pre 1983 pennies have more copper than zinc … sorry forgot my chemistry … Cu and Zk [mebbe?]

LOL Campanula, I also refer to creatures I don't care for as *swine*...

I tried the beer, it worked but it has to be emptied everyday. . . I would catch 5-7 per cup per night. . . then I discovered there was one hosta they weren't munching on. . . the reason is there were a lot of stickery twigs from a pine/conifer tree at the base of it so they couldn't get to the hosta buffet. This year I purposely arranged the twigs under each hosta and as they grow I add more twigs. Those stickery twigs are like stepping on a cactus when one is barefoot. . . that'll teach those slimy pests. . .

~Debi

I like your idea Debi! Wonder if Monkey Puzzle tree tips would work too!

I don't know what that is. . . and I wish I knew what kind of conifer tree we had in our yard (there are so many and it has been here over 60 years) but the twigs are my best defense against those critters. . . and they are FREE. . .

I have used really rough sandpaper before too. . . mine had a cloth back so it stood up to the moisture. It works good if you get it down before the hostas leaves start to cascade towards the ground.

Pics, please! Of your pennies or twigs or sandpaper around your hostas! I fear for my hostas that are now unfurling...and am willing to try one or combo of above. I'd like to see how many pennies and how close to surround, etc. Thank you.

Ill get a pic or 2 tomorrow. . . of the twigs. . . I don't have any of the sand paper. . . but all I did was cut a slit in a full sized sheet so it could snug up to the stalk of the hosta. The trick is to get something (copper tape, pennies, twigs, sandpaper, eggshells etc) down before they (hostas) unfurl, the slugs can and will climb the stock if they cant reach the leaves. As for the twigs, I plan on piling them around the base farther out than the leaves are reaching. Slugs come out of the ground at dark and munch away. My goal is to make the ground around all my hostas pokey, as in eggshells, they cut themselves on the sharp/pokey edges or surface. Sandpaper works the same way, too rough. I have lamium, astilbe and impatence in the same bed and they don't bother them at all. I wish they would just eat the grass and I'd be ok with them. . . kinda.

~Debi

Sandpaper is getting rather pricey, especially cloth back stuff. Now some used exploded belts from the workshop would be good. I remember hosts as able to get rather large. I make furniture for a living and am always kvetching about the price of supplies.

Debi, take a pic of the whole tree...maybe it can be identified. I have a bed of hostas under an overgrown mugo pine. For some reason, I never have had a slug problem there, even though it's moist and you'd think they'd love it there.

will do Linnea. . . my hostas aren't directly under the tree, their bed is several feet away but I gather the droppings and scoop them up to use them under the hostas. If your tree droppings are pokey maybe that's why you don't have the slug problem. . .even tho it's moist. . .

I'm not too concerned with the id of the tree, as we are seriously thinking about taking it, and another just like it, out soon. We live in my husbands grandparents house and we have a pic of the grandparents holding his mom when she was a baby, the trees were 2' tall. MIL is now 64. One is leaning (bad more like laying) on the neighbors house and the other one is doing the same on our house. I cant say I will miss them.

~Debi