Topic: Lupins and Delphiniums

[Garden Manager]

I love these plants and would like to have them in my garden. Trouble is every time i try they get murdered by slugs and snails. I garden on a quite heavy chalk based soil (on which slugs and snails seem to thrive).  I would like to try again and have a couple of young plants of each.

Has anyone got any tips for succes with these plants that might work for me?

Many thanks

[saddad]

No sorry, apart from the standard barriers granules and beer traps, we gave up trying to grow Delphs. for the same reason.
 ???

[honeybee]

I am experimenting with the copper ring method this year after exhausting all other methods.
Its my hostas i am trying to protect, my other half has aquired some copper rings and ive placed them all around the plants, apparently they give off a bit of a shock. So far so good, there has been a bit of a nibble, but the plants are looking great for the moment, fingers crossed.

Ive tried the beer method which i found very effective but clearing up the drowned slugs was not for me...yuck

Egg shells baked in an oven overnight are meant to be a good one, but didnt work for me, i also have hardcore around my plants but that doesnt really help either, nightmare isnt it? :-\

[saddad]

We used the copper on our Hosta pots last year and it was very effective and have left it on so they have got away very well this year as well. Can be a bit of a pig getting to stick to some of the Pots though!
 ;D

[Rosa_Mundi]

Best bet in the short term is to grow them in pots until they're a decent size before planting out, but that only works for one year.

[Mrs Ava]

I try delphs every single year without fail because I adore them, those and aconitum, but every year the same darn story.  However, I finally have a nice couple of lupins and as Rosa suggested they spent a year in a large pot until they were good hefty plants, then out they went and they have been able to withstand a little slugging onslaught and are now growing away like mad.

[Garden Manager]

Yes i tried pots too, and it worked for a while, but they never really flowered well. Then of course they got too big for the pot and a spot had to be found in the garden. 

Strangely enough the spot i planted one of them ws perhaps the one place in the whole garden the slime devils didnt get too as it has remained untouched, yet it must be the soil at that particular spot becauyse another planted a couple of feet away has not fared as well.

I say strange because this area has the poorest and driest soil in the whole garden, and all the books say delphs like good moist rich soil!

I shall have to try copper as a barrier, a method I havent tried yet. I have though had some temporary sucess with grit in the past and have already mulched the latest batch of victims...plants with it.

[theothermarg]

re copper collar method. copper pan scourers often sold in discount shops can be unravelled and cut into strips and stretched over the pot it seems to have kept my hosta's intact  AND IT'S CHEEP  :D

[Doris_Pinks]

Richard i agree with Rosa & EJ, mine were hopeless, and being in a slug eat everything we see zone, had absolutely NO luck with delphs, but I got them through their first year in pots, and the second year planted them out, as SOON as shoots appeared I covered them with cooked broken eggshells and had an amazing display which has been better with each year!
don't give up, you can beat the slimey blighters!

[fluffygrue]

We're very slug/snail-heavy here, and whenever I buy an established delph in a pot, it gets eaten within a few days. Down to the ground. All the usual methods don't work for delphs, I find - maybe try growing a few sacrificial hostas nearby to distract them?

I might try some sacrificial planting this year, actually..

Melanie

[Garden Manager]

Makes you wonder just how some people manage to grow such wonderfull ones (you know the ones you see on tv and in magazines, the ones that MAKE ME SICK just looking at them).  Then there sthe ones in the garden centres and nurseries. So perfect, so not full of holes and so desirable, but you know d**n well as soon as you get them home what seems like the entre local population of slugs and snails will decend upon that one poor plant and eat it to death.

I wonder what the true secret is? How do the growers manage to keep them off?

Just another thought... Has anyone tried either the liquid slug killer or the nematodes you see in the garden centre? I have been sceptical about eithers effectiveness and they seem a bit pricey. So I was wondering are they worth the expense?

[Ceratonia]

Makes you wonder just how some people manage to grow such wonderfull ones

Don't ever go to New Zealand then - lots of Russell lupins growing wild in the South Island, especially along roadsides. You can drive for miles along lupin lined roads - nice mix of colours, too. They're a bit of an ecological menace there.

[alit]

My husband and i go out at night before bed with a torch and hunt for the slugs and snails.   Our neighbours must think we have thieves in the garden!!  I don't know how effective this is as i'm sure we only find a fraction of them.  My mum has a tiny garden and she can find up to 200 at a time.

[Garden Manager]

Oh I dont think i want to go that far - it isnt THAT important!

[MrsKP]

Why don't slugs eat weeds !!!!   grrrrr

have just been out on the prowl and captured 20 or so, most tiny tiny ones (no doubt trying to grow up into crop desroyers) but one big one!  they are now trapped in a plastic cauldron drowing and trapped under a sheet of glass (hopefully).  i plan to make a witches brew later and cast a few spells.

 ;D

[Heldi]

sounds silly but the most effective slug repellant I've used is porridge oats.  Handfuls around the base of the plants...the slugs won't go over because it sticks and I guess would coat them in porridge. The only downside,well I don't think it is a downside but someone might,is that the blackbirds like to scoff the oats so you have to keep replacing it.

[saddad]

Bran is better than oats, and cheaper. I've used Nemaslug on the house allotment for 4 years and it has reduced the problem. Stamping and granules help but they still go for the Delphs, not the Lupins here...

See what works for you!

[Robert_Brenchley]

I planted various lupins, hollyhocks and delphiniums last year, and only one hollyhock has survived. It's getting eaten alive, while nothing else is being bothered. The only lupin i ever succeeded with was one which scraped through the first year, after which it was too strong for them.

[campanula]

i have a little gravel garden at my plot where i grow lupins and delphs in clumps - i guess the trip over a couple of metres of unforgiving gravel must deter slugs and snails as the plants are OK. In my garden at home though.....lettuce.