Have you been in the garden today? You might have noticed that the slugs have been in the garden too. This is the time of year when the push of fresh young growth promises fruits and flowers to us in the next few months, but to the slugs I imagine that this very moment is their harvest season. Most plants will be fine, of course, even if they suffer the odd nibble but it can be a sad sight all the same to see a handsome plant peppered with holes. That’s probably why the late Christopher Lloyd despaired (in his playful way):
Of course gardening is not for enjoyment. No, no, indeed not. It was never intended to be. There is no virtue in enjoyment. The hard grind, the solid slog, these are the character-forming attributes of our – I nearly said hobby – of our mission.
With that in mind then, we must not retreat from our mission! The war against slugs is not won by pellets alone. The first step is to know your enemy, so it’s a good time to have another look at our infographic on slugs – you can see it below. The second step is to grow plants that they don’t like to eat. The nurseries on the Plantedd marketplace sell a range of things that are pretty much slug-resistant, including euphorbias, geraniums, Japanese anemones, astrantias and astilbes.
Also, when you buy from garden centres, be cautious about planting out straight away because the plants may well be ‘soft’ from being grown in Holland or Italy. For slugs, this must be like eating the fancy beef from cattle that get massaged and played soothing music. ‘Soft’ plants don’t tend to be an issue with plants from our nurseries because they are acclimatised to growing in the UK.
