Tuesday 7th May 2024 - Not a Drop and Marauding Little Creatures

What a Bank Holiday weekend – not a drop of rain in sight, instead we had three days of warmth and sunshine.  We spent lots of time in the garden.  It’s strange, when I look out of the window, the garden all looks pretty well up to date but once outside I soon find ‘things’ that need attention.  What has needed attention, in particular, are the slugs!

Despite regular slug hunts to remove these marauding little creatures, each day there are more.  They continue to scoff tender plants and I was greatly upset to see the new shoots, on one of the two agastache plants I purchased last year, had been chomped.  I was really impressed with these plants; attracting bees on the flowers through to early autumn and then the seed heads added interest through late autumn and during winter.  I decided to move them to another border and I will replace them with what I hope (fingers crossed) will be slug resistant plants.  It didn’t take long for me to find the agastches a new ‘home’ and once planted I covered them with plastic bottles with the bottoms cut off (sort of mini cloches), to protect them from the slugs.  I also covered a compact rudbeckia, also purchased last year with a bottle – I could see it had a tender healthy shoot emerging from the soil which could prove tempting to slugs.  But do you know what?  This morning the shoot had gone and when I lifted the bottle, I saw a slug hiding up the top in the lid!  Peter has had equal problems with the French bean seedlings, despite planting them within a wooden frame and laying lengths of copper pipe on the soil.  The slugs have not been daunted and the plants now have perforated leaves.  The temperature may be on the up but not enough to stimulate rapid growth which will toughen leaves and make them unattractive to slugs.  Looking on the internet for slug resistant plants, so I can purchase suitable replacements for the agastaches, I saw pulmonarias and achilleas on the list.  Really?  So why were there slugs on the leaves of ours yesterday evening?  It is all very annoying and frustrating but I am most definitely in for the fight.

The flowering plants that definitely won’t get eaten by slugs are those in my embroidery, see photo below, and now displayed on one of our walls.