Hostas, slugs and hedgehogs

[lekkerkroketje]

Yes, I know hostas are slug magnets! We didn't plant them and I don't like them much. But we do have hedgehogs so I don't mind keeping them as indirect hedgehog food.

My question is, do they actually attract slugs and therefore endanger everything else, or do they just suck up all the slugs you have already and make them into one nice hedgehog drive through of fat juicy slugs? If they encourage slug rampages, I think I'll dig them out and move them somewhere I can't see them. Otherwise they and the hoggies can stay, especially if they work as a plant shield for everything else!

Gardeners wrongly think having hedgehogs in the garden is all they need to keep the slug and snail population down.
• Hedgehogs mainly eat beetles and caterpillars, not slugs and snails
• The idea that they only eat slugs and snails is very wrong. Only approximately 5% of their diet naturally will be slugs or snails.
• They will only eat a lot of slugs and snails when they are starving and no other food is available.
• A hedgehog that is forced to rely only on slugs and snails will not survive long. Offering a hedgehog additional food is the best thing for the hedgehog

Taken from a Hedgehog website - if you don't like the hosta's I'd get rid of them.

That's pretty unequivocal. Thanks!

I love hostas !I have several beauties in pots and have planted several slug resistant ones in the borders.A company called Bowdens offer a good range. I just find the way they disappear and then unfurl in spring magic,and love the different colours and leaf types.The paler green ones always seem to get more slug ravaged than the darker greeny /blue ones.
But I guess they are not to everyone taste.

I also love hosta's, there's just something about them. I had a decent sized one last year that looks like it's completely vanished, am hoping it comes back this year.

At a flower show last year I asked one of the sales people - they said the darker ones were less attractive to slugs.

I have frogs and toads and they seem to keep the worst of the slugs down