I hate slugs

I love hostas. I don't know why. They're kinda boring in a way - after all they're grown mostly for the foliage, which is just leaves. But somehow they inspire a kind of hostamania in their devotees. (We can go on about the form of the leaves, the ridging the variegation, the quality of their rather limited blossoms, even the speckling on their floral stalks).

Sadly, I can't really have hostas, because I've got a serious slug and snail problem. I poison and use barrier methods (copper tape) and biological controls (nematodes) and mechanical controls (I squish the snails under the heel of my garden clogs) - but I can't keep up. Still sometimes I try with a new hosta and then I have to face up to the fact that I've offered up a lovely specimen as sacrifice to those slimy, nasty critters.

This is what they did to my lovely Hosta Krossa Regal last year....




...despite the fact I planted Mr Regal in a pot with copper taping and slug shocka mat and nothing touching the pot. (I think some snails dropped down from an overhanging plum tree branch).

But here is Krossa Regal back for more this year