Lantana camara seems to be the only thing that slugs have not eaten this year due to two straight months of rain but it's a flowering plant. Garden where I have Lantana plants with yellow/bright pink blooms hasn't be dry in months and those plants are only ones where foliage hasn't been eaten by slugs. Lantana comes in variety of colors. Ferns and Euphorbia seem to be on many lists without someone disagreeing based on their own experience. I read a few articles on British web sites and most people indicate slug resistance of plants on all those "lists" depends upon which area of Britain you have gardens. Suppose that's true any place. Lamium and Salvia are supposed to be "resistant" but both have been attacked this year. Rosemary and Lavender also haven't been touched but probably not the lower growing foliage profile which you desire. I've got Lavender planted on mounds and in containers since it's so wet this year. Good luck in the slug battle which never seems to end!

I planted 4 blueberries in my neutral soil summer 2010 (two taller varieties and two smaller ones). They were $5 clearance shrubs from a big box store. I put them in a bit of a low spot so I mounded up a ridge for them using bales of peat moss (purchased several of these large bales when they were discounted to $1 each). I ended up about 50% peat, 50% existing soil. I mulched with pine needles and for the first year I put our coffee grounds around them. Year 2 I purchased an 8lb bag of soil sulfur for about $6 and I have sprinkled sulfur around them (and then lightly raked it into the soil) in the spring. I sill have over 3/4 of a bag. I don't think the expenses have been overwhelming. They occasionally have mild leaf discoloration (either fungal or nutrient problem I suspect) but they have grown steadily and produced several handfuls of berries this summer. They are not fast growing, dense shrubs though, in my yard. Fall is their most ornamental season with attractive red foliage. The flowers have not been very showy. Plus, they have that ericaceous look which seems a bit incongruous in my yard. They look as though they should be surrounded by mountain laurels and azaleas, not grasses and coneflowers, IMO. Animals do love these plants. In the winter the rabbits chew on the low stems (my smaller ones were almost eaten to the ground last winter), in spring the deer eat the young foliage and in summer birds eat the berries. A great way to attract wildlife to the garden! I just moved my shrubs to a location where I can more easily net them against animals. The berries are quickly eaten if not netted. The birds don't waste any time locating them. Have you considered Little Henry Dwarf Sweetspire?

I live on the North Shore of Long Island. I have (or should I say had) 2 1/2 acres of garden including prize winning day lilies, irises, hyrdrangeas. Now all I have is barren weed-caked soil and deer. Tonight I saw my one remaining Casablanca lily bud which was on a stone patio up a flight of six steps outside my dining room doors -eaten. The deer have eaten every flowering shrub, yucca spikes, geraniums, roses, balsam even sedum and portulacas. There is nothing they don't devour. The shame of it is that nothing deters them. I have a very expensive Deer Tech sonic deterrent system which costs me $3500 to install and $2800 a year to maintain. The deer browse right next to the units. I have used soap, pepper, liquid fence, deer off, bobcat urine, blood meal, milorganite, garlic, perfume oils to no avail -the deer consider them a condiment. Recently, I started spending 1 hr each evening and again in the morning wrapping and unwrapping each lily bud in gauzy row cover fabric and fastening it around the stem so it looked like a lollipop. The deer simply ate right through it. Next I encased each lily bud in a freezer weight zip-lock bag -again they chewed right through it and ate the bud. I am close to tears each morning when I visit my garden and see that there is no single blossom left. I used to look out my kitchen window to a sea of lilies. This summer the forest rats robbed me of the joy of seeing even a single flower. My border of phlox are gone and the replacements lasted one evening. My husband and I became infected with babesiosis and he almost died from it. I had $6500 damage to my car last fall when I hit one. I am sick of this infestation -they are nothing but vermin and the environment is suffering as a result. The new saplings are being destroyed and the understory plants that are home to small mammals, quail, pheasants and other birds are being denuded. During the rut, bucks can become vicious. One attacked my gardener and tried to gore him. He made it into his truck only to have the buck ram the truck damaging it to the point that it was undriveable. We feel like we are under siege. We are in the process of stringing 8' high barbed wire fencing around the perimeter of our property. Can you imagine living in a formerly lovely property that now looks like a prison? Deer are a national epidemic that are causing environmental, economic, public health and safety catastrophes. Suddenly Bambi is no longer cute. Our community has authorized culling -3 blinds and infrared cameras will be installed to track the deer and hunters will have access throughout the year. 21 deer were culled from my neighbor's yard just last year...that is the level of our populations. We also have albino deer because the herds are getting inbred. If anyone can figure out a solution -they should get the Nobel prize!

That's a beautiful viburnum in the above post! I am trying to landscape for wildlife in my yard, and this has been such a useful thread! So far, in my yard, a large holly seems to be the "favorite" of most wildlife. The birds use it for shelter year round, and it comes alive with bees in the spring when it flowers. Much of the recent plantings I have made (I only moved into my current house ~3 years ago) haven't been super succesful in attracting wildlife. I suspect the problem is that my yard is in the midst of a suburban residential area that almost entirely consists of manicured, empty green lawns. Maybe my lone yard, diversely planted as it is becoming, just isn't enough attraction for most wildlife? Birds in particular seem few and far between, though I do notice a variety of bees and other pollinators in the spring. Sadly, my neighbor just cleared out all the undergrowth and brush in a small patch of woods on his property because, as he told me, he was "afraid of snakes." I am worried that the brush pile I am trying to create on my own property will not last long...the folks in this neighborhood like to complain about any landscaping that deviates from the manicured norm. But I am trying! Claire