I use the Vigaro black mulch from Home Depot, and I sprayed household ammonia mixture once for a season....never had slugs since....been about 8 years

I personally like long pine needles both for the looks and ease of water penetration, plus it seems to be naturally slug deterrent because of the sharp points on the needle's ends.

I have used cedar mulch for years but have had slug problems until I started vinegar or ammonia drenches twice a year. That controls slugs well. Cutworms are a different story. Supposedly Sluggo Plus is supposed to help with that so I will be using that as well. I wish I could use pine needles but they don’t seem to be locally available and I don’t have my own from trees.

debra

It has been about a week of weeding and am at 50 % now. I think applying more phosphorus helped with slugs but they still there. Am thinking when I finish main weeding it will be June...

My hope as plants and trees filling I will get more and more natural shade suppression of weeds. It seems like a nice idea in theory... I tried peat moss and once it gets wet it really doesn't do good job. Pine needles are not common to find here for some reason. I might end up with wood chips after all and just increase rounds on slugs.

M

I go with free.

I have a chipper/shredder and a lot of yard waste, so I make my own mulch. A lot of the waste is from pine trees, so I also have pine straw in late fall.

I don't know what's best in terms of pH or pest control. I do spray with ammonia occasionally for slugs.

I use mulch after I weed. I mulch as I weed each area, that does cut down on weeds regrowing by the time that I finished a large area. Oak leaves have to be chopped up before I would use them. I have a lot of oak leaves from pin oaks and they will smother everything if left uncut. They do not disintegrate. I have found whole oak leaves years later if they get dug into the heavy clay in my yard.

DJ, A way to kill slugs is go out with a flash light at night and pick them off the plant and squish them. The other way is to Spray the leaves with an insecticide. They only eat green stuff. The cut worms won't eat sluggo. (At least that is what I have been told.)

Since they are moth larva, I thought leaving off the lights would help. It didn't. This is the worst year for cutworms in a while.

bkay

bkay, I have gone out many nights with my headlamp and tweezers and picked slugs off. But I do have a lot of hostas on my small property so that’s labor intensive. The ammonia or vinegar drenches have worked well for me. Last year the cutworms were terrible! Someone on the forum said that Sluggo Plus would take care of cutworms so I have put that down as well. I bought BT but haven’t used that yet. I thought I would use it if the Sluggo Plus is not working.

lindalana, your yard is looking great!

peren and miles your methods of laying mulch sounds ideal! Bit by bit….

Ben, free mulch is good! Xf

debra

The Xf was the cat’s contribution to this thread! 🐈‍⬛

debra

Say hello to the cat

Slug hunts are one of my favorite activities! I go out early AM when they are most active. If it rained over night--all the better. 10% ammonia solution is my weapon of choice. If I see one it gets zapped--LOVE to see them wiggle/swell/DIE. The entire plant gets a douse also, deep into the crown and a stream down every stem, they like to hide under the leaves so ya gotta look everywhere! If only a couple sweeps a year would irradicate them! My war is summer long. Three times a summer I also cast Ortho's Slug be Gone. In the end it really depends on the moisture that year how bad things get. In 25 years of this hosta adventure I've never noticed mulch/no mulch/leaf clean out/leave the oak leaves matter for the slugs. I love to see the toads but I also know that means there's food and that's not great for my hosta.