<<Wails>> Slugs! What plants do they NOT eat?!

[tigana]

because, I can't actually coat my entire garden in coffee grounds/egg shells/organic slug pellets/vaseline/copper.

I started a compost heap last year and quite a few of them have moved in there and I found I had less near my plants - I still get the odd one here or there but I have vowed I will pick them up and transfer them to the compost heap in future. If you have any frogs in the garden - they will sort them out. They especially like hostas but I have found the more mature the hostas are the less interested they seem to be in them. They seem to like any type of young plant. They don't seem to bother with any of my perennials. It has been so wet recently it seems to have brought them out in their thousands. My deepest sympathy - hope some of your plants survive.

I've heard they don't like French marigolds, cold you do some companion planting? Have you tried beer traps?

saucer of beer gets rid of the blighters, if you don't mind them drinking themselves to death....other than that, you have my sympathies - in my last house we gave up growving anything beautiful in the garden as they got eaten within 24hours!
DH did buy something from a garden centre once but it was armageddon and the poor things just sizzled up from the inside so I wouldn't advise that...being eaten by a frog or drinking beer would be a better way to go!

I've tried pretty much everything, egg shell, copper, grit, coffee grounds...it doesn't take them long to work out a way to get round them all.

The only thing I've found that works up till now are the beer traps..but I can't stand emptying the drunk blighters, they are the only creepy crawlies that make my skin crawl.

We have an experiment on the go as of today, Dp read somewhere on the net that if you put bran around the plants, quite thickly, they eat the bran and they blow up, and die (we're not sure if they mean 'swell' or actually 'explode'). So we bought some bran from a local health food shop yesterday, and I've sprinkled it round my veggies this evening.

I'll let you know how I and my veggies get on

pergotty - not sure about french marigolds - mine were ate down to the stalk. They even climbed up my DDs 6 foot Sunflower.

I know that french marigolds are supposed to repel something although it might not be slugs ! Maybe it's aphids i'm thinking of....

I think that they are not keen on plants with rough/fury foliage, like sage/lavender/rosemary etc.
I think they are not keen on Mediteranean plants generally.

In my last garden I didn't do slug killer. If I put something in and it got killed, I didn't try it agian. Plants had to earn a place in my garden.

I had
Penstemon
Artemesia
Poppies
Osteospurmum
Kniphofia
Fatsia
Agapanthus
etc

Loads of stuff. But you do have to be prepared to be ruthless and not put things out too small.

Not sure if you mean veggies or more general? We have a garden full of slugs, but so far I find that they leave all the hardy geraniums alone, also dicentra, veronica, azaleas. Most shrubs seem to be fine and most of the other herbaceous perennials seem to be doing OK too. They haven't touched the alpines (lysimachia, saxifrage, campanula) I planted either.

The things they seem to love most:

hostas (obviously)
most veggies
they also chowed the verbena I planted in pots last summer
violas

I grew various different lettuces last year and the red frilly & frizzy ones seem to survive better than the smooth green ones, in general.

I must try beer traps. So far I don't have a petunia left

Have you tried nematodes? Should at least set the population back a bit.

Thanks all.
My frustration was both veg and other related!
I really want to create garden from seed/cuttings etc as much as possible, but the slugs love those fresh, tender, young shoots. Bigger plants bought from garden centres are surviving a little better...but cost a bomb compared to using seeds (and feel a bit like cheating...)
nematodes may be required at some point...d othey do bulk discount

Have you tried starting things off in modules or pots indoors where they are protected from slugs and then putting them out once they're bigger and tougher? This is what I'm doing this year.

Petunias always do well in my pots and we have HUUGGGGGEEEEEE slugs that can scoff a whole window box full of bizzy lizzies in one night!

kathyis, demon slugs invaded my (cheapo, pvc type) greenhouse . Not very many sunny windowsills in the house unfortunately.

they definitely do eat marigolds

they don't eat nasturtiums and you can use those in salad although pretty peppery.

nematodes don't work on snails that do just as much damage, although if you can be arsed have time to go out at night with a torch you can pick a fair proportion of them off.

i've just about given up with edibles tbh is too depressing.

I have planted nasturtiums and marigolds to keep off unwanted visitors....but me being a starter, wouldn't know if this woirks or not I had just read that its good.

I also sprinkled oats on my patch. Apparently they gorge themselves on this and then in the morning (having been to fat to move) they get eaten by the birds.

Also sage is attractive to frogs (not to eat but to shelter...please correct me if I'm wrong) and they love to eat slugs.

Hmm, don't people feed oats to snails to purge them before eating them?
Come on Walkinthewoods, admit it, YOU are going to eat your slugs aren't you?

Ewwww. Although I must admit I have indulged in garlic snails many moons ago (and they were nice) I have also indulged in winkles (of the sea snail varity) when we were small. Now you mention it....

DH has used nematodes on our veg patch this year, plus beer traps and I have been barricading the seedlings in with rings of pennies around them. They are still being flipping munched.

And I bought a pot of hostas the other day, left in a pot too close to the wall, next morning it looked like a swiss cheese. If they take my carefully grown from seed petunia war will break out.

The front garden doesn't seem to have much slug damage, mostly full of perennials eg hardy geranium, aquilegia, roses, clematis, rosemary, bluebells, campagnola, sedum, thyme, rosemary, azaelea, alpine strawberries.

French marigolds are manna from heaven to the snails and slugs here. Eaten to the ground in seconds. Ditto mint! Clematis I can only get to grow if carefully nurtured and protected for the first year.
Keepers I have are:
Day lillies
Geraniums
Bamboo
Roses
So far [touch wood] my calendula and californian poppy seedlings.
Strawberries
Primula
Ivy
Ferns
Sage
Lavender although they seem to have tried attacking the base of the plants.
Jasmine
Passion flower

ooh, glad to hear about strawberries surviving - I have loads of little wild strawberry plants to plant out but have been too scared.

How come slugs never eat bloody goosegrass and ground elder, eh?

Its cats that don't like the smell of french marigolds.

I think French marigolds are also good for repelling carrot root fly (at least that's why my mum forced advised me to plant them between my rows of carrots).

As a newbie it's interesting to see what they like/hate...I've been using beer traps, copper tape and nematodes which have kept them mostly away from my seedlings and tender plants but, to be honest, the best thing I've found for the snails is just doing a quick recce in the morning before work, rounding them up when I empty my beer traps. They seem to like sheltering in certain plants in the garden (which I can't identify, we're renting and only moved in this spring!) and of course the usual under pots etc. This morning, following a trail of slime, i found 4 of the blighers under one pot!

I just wish we had frogs in our garden...or thrushes (we seem to only attract sparrows who only have eyes for the bird seed!)