The war on slugs

I think a quick boot or brick is probably the least cruel. This year I have collected several beach buckets of slugs and snails (mainly snails as I have a boundary wall) and taken them to the rain garden alongside the road nearby and released them there. They would have to climb a 15 foot wall to get back and there is plenty for them to eat there. Also plenty of lime mortar for their shells. Mind you there's still plenty left if I hunt with a torch.

 

Once you have these you will never get rid of them! They are everywhere around here.
I find slugs don't eat dianthus, escholzia (californian poppies) and ordinary poppies though they may be too big. Also calendulas.

 

They eat the flowers on dianthus here.

 

Only thing left in the garden that they seem to love is my aster, but I think I might love the aster more than a 'slug-free' garden, so I might resort to just using the garlic spray as often as I can from now on! The aster has also been crowded by weeds and a nearby salvia this year, so it'll hopefully sort itself out and come back stronger next year.

 

I wish they'd eat my michaelmas daisies and vinca. They're welcome to the lemon balm and that white flowered plant that people make fertiliser out of and brambles and grim urbanum ( I'm going with predictive text) and Spanish bluebells.
All of which are slug resistant

 

It's not letting them win though, is it? You're starving them.

 

I noticed loads of begonias in gardens when I was out yesterday @JWK , so they must be pretty slug resistant, unless they're using all sorts of repellents.
Gaudy colours though, so not to everyone's taste. I also noticed quite a lot of Busy Lizzies, and that blue lobelia- staple of the 'row of bedding' style that was popular in the 60s, but I don't grow any of them, so I don't know how slug resistant they really are.
They all seemed pretty happy in shadier spots as well as sunnier aspects though.

 

‘They’ve been something else this year’: slugs wreak havoc on UK gardens

 

I've grown a few begonias this year. They haven't been touched. However, some of the colours are a trifle sudden

 

I read something fairly recently that suggested collecting slugs and snails and placing them in a large-ish closed container for a few days (you probably need hundreds for this to work) to allow the natural parasites to spread rapidly and infect every slug.

It doesn't sound particularly pleasant, truth be told, and it might not work, but its organic. Slugs and snails are naturally infected with many parasites that will control their numbers when they get too high (lungworm is a particular issue for pets). Most healthy organisms can cope with a few parasites but not when exposure is so high for a prolonged period.

Unfortunately they are simply reaping the benefits of wetter, milder winters because there is a lot of rotting vegetation that they eat (as well as seedlings and any soft, weak growth or rotting parts of living plants due to all the rain). Numbers of any creature will stabilise once the food source is exhausted. Without them, there would be a lot more rotting plant matter and the soil would probably be worse as that matter wouldn't be recycled as effectively.

Not that its any consolation - I plant out delphiniums that I think are mature enough, they seem fine for a week or two, and am infuriated when the leaves disappear overnight.

 

There's trails all over my patio but I can't find the slugs. I assume they're attached to or under the containers.

 

The slugs are back in my garden, but I don't think I've got the stomach for the above personally. It does make me feel better about crushing nearly 10 baby slugs with a rock a few mins ago, as that is instant. I am coming to the conclusion that it's the least bad option, as unpleasant as it is.