list of slug-resisting plants

Deejay9, over in the Seed Trading forum just showed me a link to a list of (allegedly) slug-resistant plants.

http://www.daytonnursery.com/tips/Slug Resistant Plants.htm

It explains why I have survivng Shasta daisies, ferns and Siberian Wallflowers!

I didn't know that these have some slug resistance, but it's good news to me.
Would anyone agree or disagree with any of these?

(I can hear the Slug Queen out back muttering "Resistance is futile!", but I can try!)

Sage / Salvia
Daylilies
Nepeta
mint
Lobellia,
Columbines,
Poppies,
Forget-me-nots
Snapdragons.
Lavender
Cosmos,


Corey

I only grow daylilies and columbines and salvia, but I will agree on those. Never thought about it since we don't have near the slugs you all do on this side of the mountains. I think our cold winters freeze them out. We do have some tho. And yes, a few are the medium size of yours.

Corey, thanks for that list! I dealt with snails and slugs when I lived in Santa Cruz and in SF years ago but it has been a long time....... so that list will be most useful to me!

I suspect that most strongly aromatic plants such as herbs would deter slugs but some of those surprise me, like Cosmos and snapdragons..... interesting!

I bet they don't much like spiny cacti either.

Txaggiegal just turned me on to the idea of putting cuttings from sage and thyme around the plants that look machine-gunned.

That list came with no gaurantees, but it does steer me towards some things to try.

Corey

I have also heard that they are repelled by a nice barrier of coffee grounds. Never tried that though.

I've heard that, and heard it not work for someone, but I don't know. Someone's spouse works in an exresso bar, and brings home GALLONS of coffee grounds. There's an experiment I want to try!

http://www.rittenhouse.ca/hortmag/glynis/slimy_slugs.asp


http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1140753/#new Post #8216013 and preceeding

extract:
other links I've found or been given:

http://www.daytonnursery.com/tips/Slug Resistant Plants.htm
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/998605/
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/747407/
... using ammonia in the garden, not about slugs in particular,, but about the soil issue:
http://www.paghat.com/ammonia.html
http://www.paghat.com/coffeeslugs.html
http://www.paghat.com/slugcontrol.html
http://www.mysuburbanhomestead.com/slugs-price-checking-iron... cheaper by the 5 pound or 50 pound bag


Corey

LOL, how about a salt shaker Corey.

That would be individual slug control, but putting enough salt on the ground to deter their approach would poison the garden itself, I s'pect. Or at least, kill the neighboring plants........

good research is good! :)

For a serious slug infestion and if you have the room for them, a couple ducks will take care of your whole population. If they are free-range, don't get too many or you will then be dealing with too much duck-doo. Several years ago we had a pair, lost one to the wild, and the remaining duck became battle-buddy to our dog - they hung out together with daily spats. For no apparent reason, one or the other would snarl, snap, or flap wings at the other, who would then respond in kind. Neither ever hurt the other and they were quite hilarious to watch.

Bonehead you are so right!! When I lived in Seattle I had a couple of ducks and one in particular loved the slugs. That duck cleaned up my whole yard 1/2 acre and then the whole neighborhood. The neighbors even put out an old bathtub of water for that duck so it would work on his slugs. Everyone in the area had 1/2 acre yards and that duck really cleaned them up. But they always camped out on my back porch and that was really bad. Didn't know which was worse, the slugs or the duck poop.

He got run over by the mailman's truck. But you know it was about 3 years before we started to see slugs again. You see, that duck even dug under the rocks where the slugs laid their eggs and got those too. It was amazing, but if I came across one when working in the yard I would call Pete, the duck's name, and that duck would know and come squawking and flapping his wings across the yard to get that slug. Almost like a kid yelling, "I get it, I get it". It was so funny.

But I had 2 ducks, one was the white, I think Peking? and that one didn't go for the slugs like Pete did. But, he was a wild one I think. Don't know anything about them. Think I got them at the feed store. So many years ago.

Hi Jnette

I don't think I'll try to keep a duck as a pet in my manufactured home park space, but it is good to know that if you clear them out of a neigborhood, they take a while to come back.

>> LOL, how about a salt shaker Corey.

My version of that is the scissors I use to trim and cut flowers.
"I see you, Mr. Slug!" SNIP! "Look at you now! Sic semper slugs!"

Corey

Ducks get the eggs too. That is what clears them out and keeps them out for a while. Until they start converging from the outer limits. LOL

I recently turned over some rocks, and found enough slug eggs to make omlettes! Yuck and double-yuck.

You had ducks and a half-acre yard in Seattle? Maybe the Yellow Pages will have an Attack Duck rental agency.

Corey

OK, I will be shuddering at the image of a slug egg omlette for a while!

I swear I have the slug kingdom in my yard, and I do agree with your list with the inclusion of *some* in front of the poppies. I have no problems with the slugs on my oriental poppies, but an iceland poppy will not last one night in my yard.

I will also add as an FYI that I think that one of the reasons that I have gone hecheura crazy is not only for the cool colors, but for the fact that they are one of the most slug resistant low foilage plants in my garden (unlike the swiss cheese hosta).

>> swiss cheese hosta

I grow the same variety in my yard! They must be VERY hardy plants to survive from year to year with just a little lace-doily leaf surface. Some prior owner planted them in the lawn, and they are more "hole" than "leaf"

Yet they live on.

>> I swear I have the slug kingdom in my yard,

I think I'm in some kind of migratory flight path for slugs.
Or maybe the destination for the Slug Crusade, or Slug-Sherman's March To The Sea.

(Ever see the movie version of Heinlein's "Starship Troopers"? Like that "sea of Bugs")

But I have many grandiose plans now, and we'll see how it goes.

In theory at least, I have a bigger brain AND opposable thumbs!

Corey



This message was edited Nov 17, 2010 6:17 PM

^_^

We had a family of robins move into the neighborhood about two summers ago and they stay year round now and the slugs have disappeared. Even in the desert we were being over run with snails and slugs. I think they came in with plants from California and loved our mulch. They both seem to have disappeared.

Sharon I cannot imagine slugs surviving in Las Vegas. Do you know what a slug is? A Seattle slug? About 8 inche slong and an inch around the full length and the color of ???

Jnette, you know I saw one of those when myself and three girls were camping outside of Portland, Oregon. We were 18 and having a blast. We slept in sleeping bags and in the morning there were these enormous monsters on the ground under our bags. I guess they liked our body heat. No our slugs are about the size of a medium sized cutworm with antennas. You can find them by following the slime trail.

Girl, you don't know what a slime trail is until you have seen those from Seattle!! LOL

Robins!

Maybe I should put up a bird feeder, but the neighborhood is overrun with cats.

Corey

Here's a funny way to ID a plant:

"Something" grew profusely from a pack of mixed seeds. It kept coming back and popping up despite the Slug Army devouring things all around it.

So I tried looking up plants on the slug-resistant list, and found my sturdy volunteer:
Lobularia maritima 'Snow Crystals'
Sweet Alyssum, Seaside Lobularia
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/65150/

With zero effort on my part, it threw its seeds onto the sidewalk where they crawled into the crack between the sidewalk and the walls of a raised bed. This is their second or third year of spreading while thumbing their noses at slugs.

The Alyssum are the over-exposed white ones at the bottom of the shot.

Corey

This message was edited Nov 18, 2010 12:25 PM

Siberian Wallflowers (I think that's what they are) are also undaunted by slugs.

Erysimum x allionii
Erysimum x marshallii
Erysimum hieraciifolium

I would have said that marigolds were also immune, but I recently saw baby slugs eating moldy marigold blooms!

Corey

it was the mold that made them appealing, no doubt

>> it was the mold that made them appealing, no doubt

I never thought of that (if you're serious).

I wondered if the rain had washed away all the marigold scent, but I could smell them. Then i wodered if baby slugs had less-sensitive noses, since I had heard something like that about some other pest, like rabbits.

But maybe the seed heads were fermenting as well as molding ... marigold wine!

Corey

I have seen marigolds that have been eaten by slugs. No mold.

Maybe different M varieties taste and smell different?

I also suspect that slugs and squirrels eat firsat what they like best. After they finish their favorites, they move on to whatever is left.

Just speculation, but Ms WERE usually not machine-gunned in my yard.

Corey

Marigolds are DEFINITELY slug fodder in my yard, mold or no mold. Some varieties are a bit more resistant than others, but I very often end up with marigold "sticks" instead of plants.....

>> Marigolds are DEFINITELY slug fodder in my yard, mold or no mold

Wow! I bet it goes by variety. I have only grown "African Crackerjack" up to now, and they were pretty resistant.

Next year I will also put out "French Mix" and some from trades, so I may learn.

Corey

Guard your French Mix well.... The bigger the marigold, the less that the slugs seem to pester them, but the small varieties seem to be a treat. I have also found that if I start the marigolds myself, they seem to be a bit more slug resistant that those that you pick up at the garden stores, so I haven't bought marigolds in years.

>> Guard your French Mix well... The bigger the marigold, the less that the slugs seem to pester them,

Thanks, that's good to know. I can give them a chnace by being pre-emptive (but no nukes).


>> I have also found that if I start the marigolds myself, they seem to be a bit more slug resistant that those that you pick up at the garden stores, so I haven't bought marigolds in years.

Unwisely, I boasted to myself when I started gardening that "*I* wouldn't waste money buying plants when I could just start them from seed!"

Three years later, I'm still favoring plants that are hard to kill, because it's easier than I knew to drown, crowd, freeze and rot seedlings before I feed them to the slugs.

And Delphiniums, my first ambition, are around Corey:1 Slugs:25 Didn't-sprout:125

Gardening is an ongoing education!

Corey

One of my friends tells me I have fewer slugs that a lot of PNW gardens have. My understanding is that snakes eat slugs. I have had garden snakes for about 15 years. But they do not eat snails!!! I have more snails than slugs. Only a few slugs.

Speaking of snails, I have had a rash of these in the last few years. What's a good way to kill them but preserve their shells? Very pretty and I'm thinking of grandchild crafts...

As far as I've rerad about them, snails are just "slugs with shells".

Maybe you could catch them with beer traps. Some have suggested dry oatmeal.

Corey

Yeah, but how to get the critters out so you have a nice clean shell to work with? I've tossed them in a bucket of salt water and they die but just hang out of their shells. Left it too long and it was too slimey to attempt to try to pull them out by hand, is that the answer?

Hmmm.

Maybe expose them outside, hoping that ants clean them out?
Maybe enclose them in some nylon netting bag such as bulbs and onions come in, so critteres don't drag them away?

Maybe bury that nylon mesh bag in an active compost heap?

I'm not sure what to boil them in, to dissolve the flesh. And wouldn't that stink?
Maybe re-watch episodes of "Bones" and "CSI" to see how they do it.

Corey

Oh, yuck.

LOL~

This is just reminding me of the time I had a total snail and slug invasion one year, it was a big rain year in California after a drought and the snails and slugs were voracious and there were many many, they would actually race toward the plants (I watched this, I really did!)

so I did the thing of setting out little containers of beer to trap them in.

the problem was I did not remember where all the little beer container traps were. I missed a couple.

and then the dead snails began to decompose

and I hope never to smell anything like that again ever, or to have to actually get closer to it in order to clean it up, urg.

so, the notion of cleaning out snail shells, well, I will let those with stronger stomachs experiment with the potential methods..... but I don't think it's worth it. Let the grandkids make their crafts out of something else.

Or, let the grandkids figure out how to clean up the shells! There's an idea.....

This message was edited Nov 30, 2010 2:00 PM

>> Or, let the grandkids figure out how to clean up the shells!

Words of wisdom.

My second-best way to split knotty, twisted-grain logs to fit into a wood stove was to save them for years, always burning them LAST, so they had as long as possible to sit on the ground and crack, check, split and soften.

My BEST way to deal with knotty, twisted-grain logs was to give them away to someone more stubburn than I !

Corey

You can boil snails shells to clean them out. I did some big Hawaiian ones and it wasn't bad.

Thanks, I have a propane single burner we use for crabbing season, I can perhaps gather a bunch of them and cook them up outside downwind somewhere. I usually only get slugs, and while the snails are just a slug with a backpack, their shells are quite pretty. Easier to gather too. May as well get some use out of 'em.