this the the hosta mavens arch enemy... i have never heard of seasoning plants for predators taste buds.. where in the word did you come up with hot sauce .. i heard of cayenne for various things.. but not sauce ...

first. go out at night.. and CONFIRM you are battling slugs... else.. you are wasting time.. effort and money perhaps fighting the wrong bug..

next.. besides sluggo.. which should be doing the job.. if they are in fact slugs....we use 10% vinegar or ammonia.. sprayed directly on the slugs.. at night when they are out and about...

mulch is a great hiding place.. so you are on the right track there..

ken

sluggo and other slugg pellets are supposed to be used over a larger area, sprinkle it very sparcly all over the place, it is not suppose to work as a barrier.

did you find those slimy traces dying slugs leave behind?

apart from that perhaps try to set up "lures" like lettuce leaves under some wooden board, and check that after darkness

or put down some other weeds or dead plants you pulled out, they probably smell better than the living plant.., and check those after dark

I remember I weeded some milk thistle (?), Sonchus, tall plants, and just dumped them, meaning to continue weeding the next day, came back a couple of days later, the undisturbed Sonchus were fine, the pulled ones were coverd by slugs. good luck,

bye, Lin

Already have confirmed it's slugs. I saw them, removed them from the plant. I've used Sluggo for years in the vegetable garden; I know how it works. I know it's not a barrier. It has always attracted them to eat it and apparently prefer it and they leave the tender veggies alone. But it doesn't seem to be very effective for the Silene. And there are all sorts of plants in my ornamental beds--no hostas, however, because of deer, and not one other plant is under slug attack.

Mix 1 part ammonia with 9 parts water and spray the plant and all around the base of the plant. It’s organic, will literally melt slugs and their eggs on contact, and will act as a fertilizer for the plants.

But that only works if the slugs are actually present; there's no residual effect. During the day there's no sign of them whatsoever. And even if I got a couple one night, what about their relatives?

Try the ammonia mix on a leaf first. Although the mix is safe on some plants, it will burn others. Maybe use as a soil drench to get the ones hiding around the plants.

tj

Hmm, I used to have a bottle of ammonia, but apparently it didn't make the move with me. I'm waaaay out in the country. Will have to wait for a shopping trip.

I get thousands of slugs and snails. They are active in the day time, i manually pick them off and place in a container. I then pour salt on them. One weekend a couple of years ago, i killed a thousand…no exaggeration! Oddly, they never eat my hosta.

I hesitate to suggest this because I've been laughed at, but I have great luck with leftover diluted coffee. I put this on my lupines and rhododendrons and it has helped enormously.

Editing to be clear, I'm suggesting the diluted leftover liquid coffee.

Good luck!

Oh, haven't been able to drink coffee in some 30 years--I still miss it. Can't drink black tea either.

What still baffles me about the whole thing is that my vegetable garden is permanent beds, not raised. It's very heavily mulched with leaves and hay and the paths between are mulched with wood chips, same chips as in the ornamental beds. After I sow anything, I sprinkle Sluggo. This is all it takes; by the time seeds germinate, slugs are gone in that little area. When I set out plants in holes in the hay/leaf mulch, I just sprinkle a little Sluggo around them. Again, that takes care of it. Occasionally, with tender plants like Asian mustards or lettuce, I have to use a little Sluggo when they've grown considerably. Lots and lots more mulch for the slugs to hide under than there is around the Silenes, but the Sluggo seems to work better there than it does around the Silenes. This morning I found one slug again on the worst hit one, but another was looking a tad better and found no slugs.

One of the mysteries of gardening, I guess.

Sorry about the coffee situation, I think I'd miss it too although it meant more to me when I was younger.

I hope you can save your Silene from the villainous slugs, they must love the silene to risk their lives crossing sluggo! I circle my lupines with oyster half-shells, in the hopes that slugs won't cross a sharp alkaline barrier. (We love oysters when we can get them, and I think they look pretty.) . Hopefully they are not adding too much alkaline for the lupines, which prefer acidic soil - one of these days I'll get a soil test.

No risk in crossing the Sluggo--they have to eat it. But the siren call of the Silene must be VERY strong for them to ignore the Sluggo.

Perhaps they don't like crawling across the mulch in the vegetable garden. Try some around the Silenes.

O Lacey - my arch enemies. Every night, I take my headlamp, rubber gloves and bucket and go round the garden on slug and snail control. They are particular about certain plants so I generally know where to look first. The first coupla nights after hibernation (I was caught on the hop as usual), I was finding 90 or so. Now, a few weeks later, I sometimes just find 3 or 4. I am soft hearted and find it hard to stamp on them so I cart them off to a municipal rubbish bin on the other side of a busy road. Most other people find easier ways to dispatch them (My neighbour chopps them in half with scissors!). This is the only way to keep my seedlings alive...although I had some brief success with my (only) hosta using pennies as a mulch..

Oh, pennies. Copper. That's an interesting idea.

Happy to report one of Silenes appears to be recovering after spreading lots of Sluggo all around it in a wide band. The other, worse hit, I can't tell yet.

That is good news!

Today was finally warm here, and I saw beetles, maybe just under 1/2inch or so ? , they are predators for slugs (albeit our slugs are in the smallish side - but many)

in the last couple of years ive been seeing fewer slugs and more beetles but… weather is a big factor too, hmmm

Well, I was just out in the early morning dark.. only to find a small slug on the worst hit one, ground covered for some distance with Sluggo and a circle of pennies around the plant. Nothing on the other one some distance away. Out of ideas now.

The little keeled slugs burrow in the soil - barriers are not much help. Best thing you can do is nightly hunt and kill visits - catch the sods in the act - it is honestly the only thing which works for me.

But why does the Sluggo work so well in the vegetable garden where the mulch is much, much thicker? I've been using it for years there with great success in both my old garden and this new one where the slug problem is so bad. That's what I can't figure out.