Slugs will be around anytime you provide a good, healthy soil that is well endowed with organic matter and is propely mulched since that creates the conditions that slugs really like to live in, a cool, moist environment with ample food nearby. If the slugs are outside of the bed the plants they like are growing in the copper strips could keep them out, but if they are already in the soil n the bed the copper strips will be an expensive, and useless, attempt at control. I find that I have less trouble with slugs when the mulch is quite heavy, apparently they have ample food in that mulch and leave the growing plants alone. Saucers of stale beer can be a less expensive method of control and encouraging toads and garter snakes to hang around the garden is another.

Try this Lois, put your Camera power on, then push the Disp. button on right of the monitor 1-3 times, you will see the display on monitor :) then choose the one you like.

Looking again the last time I was there at the one I planted on Camano at the moment the central point is actually something more like 2 ft. high and the main hanging drape of branches is more like 4 ft. long. If you have perennial weeds of much consequence you will have to clean them out before planting ground covers otherwise many of them may persist even after the planting fills in. Also you will want to choose ground-covering plants growing at least 2 ft. tall in order to minimize nuisance plants seeding into the planting even after it has been established for many years. For instance in my area red alder trees, more than one species of blackberry and giant morning glory (Calystegia) are examples of things that may often be seen to have come up through even quite dense ground covering plantings. If you are thinking you have to be able to dig organic material into your beds it is actually better to simply apply it as mulch - as Nature does. The main exception is when ground is being worked and amended before the planting of annual flowers and annual vegetables. But plantings of longer lived subjects should always consist of loosening the existing soil, planting in it without attempting to modify the texture with any additives and then mulching well immediately after planting. If an existing soil is thought completely unsuitable for a particular kind of woody or perennial plant then that soil needs to be replaced, rather than merely amended. As in digging out beds entirely and filling them with suitable soil, or placing layers (berms or mounds) or suitable soil on top of the existing soil. And planting in these added layers without blending them with the existing soil underneath. Which would defeat the purpose of bringing in different soil.

o, thank you floral for this post. I'm grateful to the others, too, but it's pretty clear that they are all Paulownia-dislikers from the start. Now, I have many C. siliquastrums-what a beautiful tree!-but part of the motivation for my wanting a P. is it's speedy growth,and the fact that it can get very tall. See, one of the probs with my site is that effing south-western sun, that is just too ferocious in July and August; I honestly am not too sure that the roses would object all that much to the shade. AND , remember, the land slopes sharply down towards the south-west as well, so that blistering sun is frying my garden up until about 7:30 PM in summer. Placing a tall tree strategically could actually block the sun by blocking out part of the actual sky, if you get what I mean. I have some mature oaks that do just that in part of the garden, but they are placed at the bottom of the slope and are growing too far off to the western side to be of help to the central garden. I don't think a cercis could get that tall,and they don't grow all that quickly. The other thing about the morphology of my land is that,with the sharp slope, I think it is quite possible that the morning/early afternoon sun would still hit the roses; the shade would arrive once the sun was pretty high in the sky. I guess I'm also thinking that I could play with things a bit; prune the tree so it'd sort of grow like a tilted beach umbrella, with most of it's canopy oriented to the south-west. My mature oaks actually do tend to grow sort of like that anyway (growing towards the dominant sun) Actually, if I could be sure of it's hardiness, I probably would go for a jacaranda, but I'm afraid it might be just a bit too cold for them here. The other thing abou paulownia that tempts me is sort of ..it's vices! Since it does self-sow easily, if I find that my idea does not work and the mother tree provides too much shade, I can girdle the mother tree and get rid of it and save a seedling for planting elsewhere, if I so desire. Since they grow so fast it won't be the loss of a huge investment of time and labour. The idea of the debris it provides is welcome to my organic-matter-hungry land. Hearing that it blooms in April is not the best of news,since from the pictures I see on Internet when it is in bloom it provides only very dappled shade; coupled with the open. graceful habit of a mature tree that would be perfect for the roses. However, I did find a blog or some such http://www.siteandinsight.com/tag/paulownia/    ; this lady writes about seeing them in flower in the area of Ferrara in May. Perhaps the ones in London bloom earlier because they are in the shelter of buildings, etc. In any case ,my land is very open, out in the woods,at about 600 meters above sea level; my roses bloom well after the ones in the city of Prato have started, so a paulownia might bloom later for me as well. But as I said before, if the idea does not work out as I hope,I'm not so sure it'd be such a big problem or loss to remediate it.