I've heard "beer traps" work. That was a long time ago though. Might have to look that one up.

I have some slugs but I have never caught them on the hydrangeas. Maybe check at night and under rocks to see what could be hiding there. I would use the beer trap for the slugs.

They do work. They also work for rollie pollies as well. My grandmother did that and I put beer out today but it rained pretty good so that probably needs redone. They prefer lighter beers (not dark brown) from what I've done before.

I had tons of them one year with he beer then not as many another year and they pretty much ignored he dark beer one year but went to another one. Who knew.

Oh geez do they ever. I had 3 colors and every size all over my bearded irises (don't touch the Dutch) and all over my hydrangeas tonight. Some irises almost more slug than bloom. I had to spend 5-10 minutes scrubbing my hands with 2 kinds of soap and a mail brush to get the slime off my hands from picking them off.

Just spent 2 hours slug hunting and trimming back damaged iris leaves from slugs and iris borers both. I dropped the slugs into salted water since they kept crawling out otherwise.

Now that's holiday dedication! Funny about the light beer though - cheaper than wasting craft beer! I haven't personally seen any iris damage, but maybe because of their multiplication rate. I started with two small clumps a couple years ago and now have about 100 sq ft of irises.

The 3 year old woke up at 5:30 so once the husband woke up I went out.

I've had damage for 2 or 3 years now before I actually saw a borer last year. There's more bearded than it looks like... you can't really tell from the photo. I just added 48 more Dutch a few weeks ago.

Very nice!

I currently have the yellow ones that produce the small beards, as well as the purple and a couple orange/burgundy. Once they spread a little, if you ever wanna trade fir orange/burgundy or something, gimme a holler!

Do you believe it was slugs eating the Hydrangea leaves or something else?

I think it might be more than one thing. I saw slugs the other night after I asked.

Large populations of snails & slugs in every garden over many years, but yet to see them damage flower gardens. Always thought of them as part of the clean-up crew that deal with already compromised & decaying matter. Have watched them eat rose leaves riddled with sawfly lace & totally ignore the healthy ones. Same with plants like nicotiana & heuchera, where lowest leaves are overgrown by larger new ones & the oldest gradually soften from damp & being shaded out. The clean up crew chows down on those without advancing to healthy foliage. Granddaddy slugs 5" long sleep along the soil line of a terracotta pot on the shady porch, yet leave the assortment of annuals planted in it alone. In the open garden, naturally shed leaves & petals disappear within a day or two, attributed again to the clean up crew that grooms the garden overnight.

Birds, toads & lizards hunt daily here & relish slugs. Wouldn't chance harm to them from slugs full of poisoned bait. Would they be impaired by beer bloated slugs? Used to employ those narrow rolls of thin copper sheet to create a barrier around vulnerable leafy greens in the veggie garden. Oldtimers used lines of copper pennies to the same effect. Those need to be polished up occasionally to retain the faint electrical charge that deters slugs & snails from crossing them.

Check out this article - According to Robert Pavlis they do NOT work. He even shows how they ignore the beer or drink some and move on. Some fall in and drown - same for copper wire and eggshells - they do not work either.

beer-slug-trap-or-slug-saloon/

I find slug damage on newly set out cuttings. I use snail bait and that takes care of the problem.

Some may move on, but the beer traps catch quite a few (dozens) for me.

I found some organic safe slug bait online since I hadn't found it locally and am waiting for it to arrive. I had a mini poodle that was dumb enough to eat the slug bait from the beds and somehow survived it more than once without getting sick, but it scared me every time. Slugs damage everything here, even larger plants I've had for 6 years or so all the way up to the blooms on 3 foot tall bearded irises.

"Granddaddy slugs 5" long sleep along the soil line of a terracotta pot
on the shady porch, yet leave the assortment of annuals planted in it
alone."

LOL!! I only wish! Slugs (and snails, which are 100% worse in my book) will eat almost anything here....with the possible exception of broadleaved evergreens (the root weevils take care of many of those!). Annuals of just about any variety do not stand a chance unless heavily baited for slugs - I notice that two small coleus in an elevated planter on my patio have been decimated. And I just posted a question about cutting back slug/snail ravaged hosta foliage on the Hosta forum. I have several hydrangeas they are munching on as well as clematis, monarda, nicotiana, the above hostas and a couple of begonias. And nearly any of my summer vacationing houseplants.

Beer traps ARE effective - the beer attracts them but doesn't kill them - drowning accomplishes that. But with pets around (they like beer as well), I prefer to use the eco- and pet-friendly iron phosphate baits (Sluggo). Don't need a drunk dog - he's goofy enough as it is!!

I use Skuggo too, when slugs are out in force, However, that can get expen$ive wjem I have to broadcast it in my large outside areas so, sometimes, I use Sluggo only in the doggy areas (for exactly the same reasons mentioned by gardenga;48) and the beer trap elsewhere.

On a somewhat related note, I guess, putting cayenne pepper on my verbena turned the rabbits away after a few times. My dog wasn't in that part of the yard. Of course, there was also a pair of hawks whose chicks stayed around that year too so that might have had something to do with it as well.

I gather the dropped twigs/stems/branches from my very old fir tree. I dont know what kind of tree it is but it has pokey stems (I even cuss when I step on them) I started laying them in my hosta bed, and it worked so well I now do the same with my hydrangeas. Kind of like the egg shell theory, they are sharp for the slugs to slide over. It has worked for the past 3 years.

The bugs haven't damaged my hydrangeas too heavily yet though my ranunculus and iris have been hit pretty hard, but I've been using Garden Safe slug and snail the last month and it seems to work well. We finally got my butterfly and bee houses up today. I hope the orange one is OK being in the flowers like that.

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