Hostas

[AnnaMagnani]

I've never grown hostas before due to their reputation for being shredded by slugs. However I thought I'd have a go and put 3 in about a month ago.

The poor things are doing their best but are clearly under severe attack and are now looking quite sad.

Can I have your top tips for hosta protection please?

I dug mine up, cut back and put them in pots placed up on a tiered plant theatre

Look stunning now

Grow them in pots on patios / paved areas where there are fewer slugs and snails. Go out after dark with a torch to check for the buggers and remove if present.

Check out gardeners world on Friday, they had an expert in hostas on!

Think of them like a pet, they need checking twice a day for slugs and snails.

deffo in pots - entirely pointless otherwise

My mother swears by washing the leaves in water in which you've boiled heads of garlic, but I've not yet been desperate enough to try it...

Dig them up and bin them because it’s hopeless pot them.
then put 10rings of defence
alternating copper salt and slug pellets.

I put eggshells round mine.

Garlic spray according to my nanna. But I just planted them and veg so obviously the slugs go for my veg 🙄 hostas are unharmed.

Twice a day! They are doomed then. I'm away half the week and no way is DH doing that.

Strongly tempted by garlic spray but how often - again, if every time it rains this will hit the DH problem.

Will watch Gardener's World but worried that the best thing to do is grow something else.

I saw this on a gardening Facebook page but I haven’t tried it yet.

I've tried the garlic spray. Didn't work. The slugs developed a taste for it, and it made the garden smell rank.

For next time, there's now a few so-called slug resistant hostas. Worth a try (I haven't tried them).
https://hayloft.co.uk/slug-resistant-hosta-collection-g-k42113

... my top tip for hostas is: swerve them, and instead get Japanese anemones. They have similarly large, flat leaves and grow in shade. But they are taller than hostas and they flower later in the year. I quite like seeing the blooms in Sept-Oct when other plants are shutting down. Best of all, slugs and snails won't touch them!

Have investigated the hosta situation while weeding the border this morning.

Unfortunately a giant clump of ivy has invaded from next door right next to them. Hoiked out the ivy and revealed a large quantity of snails all chilling in the ivy. Have removed 40+ snails.

Poor hostas, it's like I planted them in a war zone!

Will see what happens now I am more alert to the snail/slug issue.

I had hostas in the front garden. They all died and amongst other things I planted a Japanese pagoda tree.
I looked out the bedroom window on Sunday morning and there underneath me, right on top of and exactly in the middle of the pagoda tree, was a snail....
Then a sparrow popped his head up through the leaves and looked at me before disappearing again, which was quite funny too.