slug/snail proof bedding plants

I am so totally ticked off! Every year I buy trays of marigolds which I love and spend ages planting them all out only to find that withing about 5 days they're reduced to little stumps! It's not birds, I'm sure but I do have a healthy population of snails and slugs and I'm sure they're the culprits. I've tried the usual preventatives to little or no avail, I even had a pond put in in the vain hope of getting a resident frog or two but nothing! I also find the same with pansies and chrysanths.


So now I've decided to change tactics and look for snail/slug resistant/proof plants!


HELP!!! I need suggestions.

 

Daisy - I so sympathise with your plight, I have lost a few tagettes and marigolds this year and don't even talk to me about my clematis. I am startng to regain some control, the only thing I am finding that is reducing numbers is to go out every morning and night and collect the beggars. I found 100 snails one weekend! Especially in this wet weather, go out tonight and collect as many as you can!

As far as resistant plants I find they aren't interested in the following bedding plants - geraniums, busy lizzies, fushias, begonias.

Petunias seem to put up a reasonable fight but they will eat the odd one. I have also planted alot of cosmos this year and they don't seem to be touching those and have only eaten one of the cornflower plants I have grown from seed.

Good luck! EGW

 

thanks EGW

 

Been googling and found these suggestions for getting rid of slugs and snails. Think it is a known method of dealing with the little so-and-sos.

"We've discovered that apparently even slugs like a cheeky pint. Thing is, whereas we feel like death warmed up the next morning, slugs actually die.
Yep, they like lager, but it's poison to them, so if you create a beer trap in your garden (a pot buried in the ground filled with the Stella, Carling - your choice) they'll fall in and drown. Not pleasant but effective.
It was suggested burying a yoghurt pot two-thirds of the way down, leaving a third sticking out above ground level to stop any kindly bugs falling in. Holly turned out to be quite the slug landlady - with an expert knowledge of their favourite snacks and beverages, (did you know they prefer dark beer like stout? Either way sounds like a waste of good draught to us - what do you think?). Holly also recommended a liberal sprinkling of cat litter which dries up slug's slime thereby killing them. No wonder they're so thirsty for beer."

So pots of beer and catlit round the young plants DM!

 

As mentioned before, you don't have to put your best beer in the traps. Take an empty plastic bottle to your local pub and ask them to fill it from the slop-tray. They're usually happy to oblige.

 

Thanks for that Tiarella, Mr DB is a happy man now I have passed on your tip, no longer does he have to give up part of his prized pint to the slugs, with the added bonus it gives him a good excuse to hot foot it to the pub :D

 

I once emptied the metal vase from a grave and found it was full of slug 'soup' - slugs that had fallen in the water and rotted down to a sludge!!


Yeeeuuuuwww!! yuk yuk! Never again.

I just want to find plants they won't ravage.

 

my pirana-snails eat everything ...
I don't know what to suggest!

 

Found 21 snails and 13 slugs last night on a 9pm
patrol, depite my best efforts of collecting all the little beggars over the last couple of weeks! My poor tagettes are really struggling now! and my marigolds are aking a beating - They are obviously coming from far and wide to eat my plants! I think I will follow your lead daisy and just plant something different next year!!

P.S I read somewhere, probably on here, that the slugs like beer so much the traps actually encourage more into your garden.

tonight I am gonna put some cucumber/lettuce out in the garden and then collect the ones that come and eat it!

 

We've had several threads about snails and slugs and how to get rid of them, here is one -

http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=24;t=000218

 

I know - but I'm more into proactive/prevention than the 'kill to cure'. I hate killing things - 'cept bluebottles that want to lay eggs on my cat's food or drop into my glass of OJ seconds before I took a huge swig! Yeeeuuuw!

 

Oh, yuk, disgusting MMD!!!

I don't think it is possible to prevent slugs and snails feasting on your plants, well certain of them at least. I don't like killing things either but with these always-hungry munchers sliming around, it is WAR.

 

I am pathetic, I collect them all in a carrier bag, tie it up and chuck it in the wheelie bin - I know this is just down right cruel but I can't face crushing or salting them!

I feel less guilty when I look at the stumps which once were plants (mostly painstakingly grown from seed!)

 

Look at it like this EGW, you are giving your plants the chance to live by killing the slugs and snails. I hope this makes you feel less cruel.

 

I got into my garden today for the first time in 2 years!! I then discovered that all the violets I planted a couple of months ago have been eaten to nothing at all!! No sign of them!

So I started stripping out my kniphofia and guess what I found - hundreds of the little so and so's all secreted away. I got a plastic bag and began picking them like strawberries and ended up with 2�½ lbs of them! I should have gone somewhere to release them but my knee started to play up and now they're all neatly wrapped up in the plastic bag outside, suffocating to a long slow death!

I shan't sleep tonight for guilt at the calumny!
HOW can I be so cruel and heartless?


EASILY!!