Bedding plants that slugs will avoid!

[Shinyandnew1]

I’m want to get some bedding plants for my pots this week, but have had two lovely ones (nemesia and lobelia) totally shredded over the last two weeks by slugs so don’t want to buy any more slug food if possible!

what do slugs hate??

Slugs hate copper! You can buy special copper tape to stick to your pots but copper wire works just as well, if you happen to have some. Slugs just won’t cross it.

We have a nightmare with slugs to the extent that I have mostly given up on bedding plants and use herbaceous perennials instead - geranium roxanne, for example, seems slug proof and gives months of colour. Hairy plants are often good.

It's a good idea to give up on bedding plants anyway, annuals are only a good idea if you grow from seed otherwise its a really environmentally unfriendly way to do gardening.

We have loads of slugs and snails here too!
Things that have worked without getting chomped are
Impatiens
Cosmos
Lavenders
verbena
erigeron
petunia
and Weirdly lobelia

and in the beds
salvia
geum
hardy geraniums
comfrey
ferns and grasses

Unlike @Newforumnewname , I lost all my impatiens and cosmos to the slugs and snails last year. Also phlox, pansies and primrose get munched.

I've gone for geraniums and osteospermum this year as they seem to survive. Had stocks and sweet William for the spring which have been fine. But agree the perennials often do better: campanula, wallflowers, geum, chrysanthemum.

Antirrhinum (snapdragons) are a sure winner, slugs hate them!

They don't like fuscia or dianthus either.
I dig in nematodes every spring. They do work.

Wool slip pellets are worth trying. Water your plants into the pots then put a layer of these pellets and water them too.

*Wool slug pellets

Copper tape doesn't work! Total myth, as is eggshell.
Absolutely everything I've grown this year has been devoured. Even my pumpkin plants, I'm gutted!

Anything with spiky looking leaves ie not soft round ones seem to survive best

@Shinyandnew1 could you encourage hedgehogs? Hedgehogs love eating invertebrates Hedgehog diet