Slugs: Keep Them Away from Your Hostas

Slugs are horrible pests that can take away the beauty of the hostas in your garden. Read on to know how you can keep them away.  

Slugs are probably the most disappointing thing to be seen in a hosta garden or any garden for that matter. Imagine seeing a garden full of colorful perennials, and watching their foliage being eaten by a disgusting pest after a day. Slugs particularly, do not kill your plants initially – they rather ruin their appearance by causing holes on their leaves, making them look horrible. In the long run however, they might seriously injure your plants or even kill them if ignored.

You can give your hostas all what they need, not to mention their maintenance needs are minimal, but keeping pests away from them happens to be the Achilles heel for many especially the amateurs in gardening.

Devising a strategy for controlling slugs and following the same throughout the growing season of your hosta plants, is the best way to prevent them from spoiling your garden. Here are a few guidelines you can follow while preparing your strategy:

Know the Habits of Slugs
Slugs mostly do not show any activity during winters – they stay under debris or other areas that are protected. They lay eggs mainly in spring or in the beginning of summers. It can take 10 to 100 days for these eggs to hatch, depending on the temperature. If the climate is cool and moist, slugs can even lay two batches of eggs. It is only during damp and cool days, that slugs leave their shelter and attack the leaves. The size of a slug can vary from 1.5 inches to 7 inches, and these pests often leave behind a trail of slime that usually has a silvery color.

Choose the Best Suited Variety of Hostas
If you are aware of the slug problem, you need to be a little selective while buying hostas. Hosta sales usually offer a plethora of options to choose from. It is however, advisable to go for varieties having thick leaves as these can resist the attack of slugs, unlike those having thin leaves.

Follow Some Basic Measures:
Before planning to eliminate the slugs in your garden, you need to make their living conditions worse. You can start by cleaning the areas where slugs are likely to take shelter. Get rid of any rotten leaves or any other unwanted debris around the plant. Apart from that, avoid making an excessively thick layer of mulch as it supports the slugs – 3 inches is the ideal thickness for a layer of mulch. Furthermore, it is better to make mulch with small pieces so that it does not attract any slugs.

You will find hosta plants for sale on a number of online nurseries – before you take a pick from those, consider the above-mentioned guidelines and prepare your garden accordingly.
 

Useful Advice for Planting Red Coral Bells

Heucheras or coral bells are perfect perennials for decorating a garden. Not only do they enhance the beauty of gardens but also save the effort of gardeners in maintaining them. If you are planning to grow red coral bells in your garden, here are some useful guidelines for you:

 Suitable Regions For Growing Red-Leafed Heucheras
Coral bells heuchera having red leaves grows best in regions where temperatures are low. Such regions normally fall in hardiness zones 4 to 8 defined by USDA. These perennial plants can live long in cold areas. Heucheras spread with aging, forming mounding clumps. One can grow heucheras in warm areas as well, but life span of these plants is shorter in warmer climates.


Choosing the Right Location in your Garden:
Unlike green-leafed heucheras which can grow well even in full sunlight, coral bells with red foliage grow best in areas having full shade. However, heucheras grown in full shade are less likely to bloom. So, it is better to plant these in dappled shade. This will facilitate the growth of flowers in your coral bells plants. For proper growth, these plants need a well-drained soil that has plenty of organic matter. The soil can be moist but not soggy. This is because soggy soil can result in root rot.

Garden Decoration With Coral Bells
Red coral bells in a garden need to be placed in such a manner that their foliage is visible. While the foliage grows low, flowers of heucheras can grow up to height of 2 feet. Due to this reason, most gardeners prefer to grow these plants along the border of flower bed or along the edge of a path. Another good idea is to plant heucheras right in front of your shrubs. This works best when you grow heucheras in a rock garden having enough shade, or when you grow them in containers and keep them in a cool place.

Complementing Heucheras with Right Plants
Based on your style of garden decoration, you can complement the red foliage of your heucheras with a plant having leaves of contrasting color such as golden or bright green. You can find many varieties of hostas and heucheras having foliage of golden or green color. For a simple look, you can choose plants with red leaves. However, requirements of these plants should be similar to that of your coral bells. Leather leaf sedge and some varieties of begonias are ideal for this purpose.