Oh, you're right, it is on the box. But who ever looks on the FRONT of the box for the ingredient list? 3.25% metaldehyde versus 5% sodium ferric. (If I'm remembering names and amounts correctly.) Doesn't sodium ferric sound like iron salts? Sounds like some sort of rust. Well, whatever it is, it is hopefully killing slugs. I don't usually like putting out poisons unless there's a need so just putting some out every month isn't probably going to happen. It also means I'd need to pay attention to a schedule and that doesn't work well for me. Probably what will happen is I will just wait until I see slug damage or slug trails again before reapplying any Corry's of any variety. I've also ordered some diatomacious earth which is supposed to deter slugs. The area being protected from slugs is a raised bed garden made of three layers of concrete blocks stacked and filled with soil. If a circle of diatomacious earth was applied around the base of the raised bed gardens and the Corry's killed off all the slugs in the gardens, would the diatomacious earth keep any new slugs from coming in? Do slugs lay eggs or somehow do something to propagate before they got killed off by the Corry's? If I put the circle of the diatomacious earth around the garden and new slugs hatch, they'd not be able to get out, although one hopes residual Corry's would do them in before they did much damage. Would a line of hydrated lime around the edge of the raised bed garden deter slugs? Hydrated lime on frogs will kill them and frogs and slugs seem somewhat similar?

Found a fantastic link which explains the many forms of calcium: http://waltsorganic.com/ag-lime-dolomite-gypsum-oyster-shellwhat-kind-of-calcium-do-you-need/ Agricultural Lime: Calcium carbonate – CaC03 Pure calcium carbonate is used to help prevent the spread of various diseases, such as powdery mildew, black spot, and blossom end rot ... Adding Ag. Lime to your soil will also raise your PH making it more alkaline. Dolomite: Dolomitic Lime contains calcium carbonate, bringing benefits similar to Ag Lime, while also providing magnesium which is important for plants’ utilization of nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. Having an excess of magnesium in your soil can cause a break down in soil structure, resulting in hard compact soils. Gypsum: Calcium sulfate, or Sulfate of Lime – CaS042H20, due to its sulfur content Gypsum does not raise the soil PH like lime, and there is some debate as to whether it lowers soil PH. Gypsum helps liberate potash for plant use. Gypsum can also help break up compact and clay filled soils by correcting excess amounts of magnesium in your soil. Oyster Shell Flour: in addition to a large percentage of calcium carbonate, Oyster shell flour contains about 1-% phosphoric acid, which makes oyster shell flour a source of both lime (calcium) and phosphorus. Oyster shell will also slightly raise your soils PH over time. **** From Straw: The horse stable nearby me uses oyster shell lime to deodorize their horse manure. I tested the horse manure pH, and it's over 8. When I applied to my roses, alkaline horse manure (high in calcium & magnesium & potassium & phosphorus) REVERSED blackspots on roses by pumping out new & clean leaves and neutralize the acidity of rain water. Shell lime is best for alkaline clay which needs more phosphorus, plus it raises the pH slowly. Agricultural lime is best to sprinkle on leaves of roses, it's calcium carbonate which is a fungicide, it kills fungus by raising the pH. Dolomitic lime is best for acidic sandy / loamy soil. It will raise the pH, plus supply calcium and magnesium. Magnesium is the "glue" that holds soil together, and is less available in sandy soil. Gypsum also release calcium fast, but doesn't result in pale roses due to 17% sulfur in gypsum. My preference for my alkaline clay: I use shell lime (in horse manure) for heavy-bloomers BEFORE RAIN, and gypsum for wimpy own-roots BEFORE RAIN. Below site sells organic stuff cheap with 5,000 items to choose: 50 lb. of alfalfa pellets for $25, alfalfa seeds, clover seeds (for nitrogen), $9 for 50 lb. of gypsum, $10 for 50lb. of oyster shell lime, $9 for 50 lb. of dolomite lime (best for sandy or loamy soil, since magnesium is the "glue" that retains nutrients). http://www.groworganic.com/search#q=alfalfa hay&p=1 If someone has sandy or loamy soil, the acidic rain will beat up on roots, cause leaching of calcium & magnesium & potassium ... thus leaves become thinner and break out in fungal diseases. I successfully reversed blackspots & mildew on roses just by topping with ALKALINE & HIGH MINERALS & SLOW-RELEASED mulch, such as alfalfa hay (less acidic than alfalfa meal), my dolomitic clay, or horse manure (with oyster shell for calcium & phosphorus for my alkaline clay). Below are some pics. of own-root Golden Celebration. The first one was 2012 pic. in the front of my house, late August 2012: Second pic. below is the base of Golden Celebration, which is 100% clean with horse manure, pic. taken late October 2012 after the 1st frost: Third pic. below is Golden Celebration bloom with horse manure. Golden Cel. got too big for my front walk-way .. when I moved it, there's at least 1 foot of fluffy horse manure, and the root was huge:

Purlisa: I no longer post for the pubic, but I make exceptions when people ask for me specifically. I respect & learn from honest folks like you who share about their garden. I learn more from honest folks who talk about problems in their garden, than gorgeous pics. of roses (with zero details as to type of soil & pH-level & climate & annual rainfall). That's my pet-peeve in HMF, folks just post pics, without specifying if it's own-root or grafted, zero info. on planting zone & type of soil & climate. If you click on my Houzz profile-picture , I updated to include tips on how to tell which own-roots are appropriate for which soil pH, type of soil & climate, just by looking at the leaves. https://www.houzz.com/user/strawchicago I received 8 roses yesterday 6/15 from RU summer sale, they are BIG, and some are over 2 feet tall & with buds & blooms .. very healthy. These roses are bigger & more blooms that the 7 roses I bought full-price early May. My last house was acidic clay: soft & easy to dig, with blue hydrangeas & deep-colors roses. My current house is alkaline clay: rock-hard, need a pick-ax to dig, pink hydrangeas, and roses have faded colors. Roses are much healthier in alkaline clay. My purpose of posting is to help foiks NOT to make the same mistakes like I did in my 30+ years of growing roses, and 110 own-root varieties. My B.S. is in Computer Science, minor in Chemistry, so I want to use my background to help folks. If you have sticky & dense clay, skip the Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate), since it hardens clay further. MAGNESIUM DEFICIENCY IS RARE, EXCEPT IN SANDY SOIL (this is from the booklet when I got my soil tested by EarthCo.) My sticky clay soil was tested exceedingly high in magnesium. Skip the molasses, I tested for many years and it attracts rose-slugs, plus sugarly stuff LOWERS soil pH, sugar sours things fast. Azomite is similar to dolomitic lime (both have pH 9), but Azomite works faster. Digging deep, and remove the dense & icky clay & rocks at bottom helps with drainage, so acidic rain water don't sit at the bottom to rot roots. If your clay soil is acidic, COARSE sand (paver's sand) is good on top. BAGGED SAND AT STORES IS VERY ALKALINE, so it will neutralize the acidity of rain. Niels in Denmark, with hundreds of roses, put sand on top of his acidic clay. Skip the alfalfa, it becomes VERY ACIDIC like Kimchi if decays in acidic rain water. Many folks report roses breaking out in blackspots after "sour alfalfa tea", it's like watering roses with sauerkraut or Kimchi-water. At least Kimchi or sauerkraut has salt to control the acidity, but I already tested acidic-alfalfa-tea and it made leaves thinner, thanks to its acidity. Since my clay is rock-hard alkaline at pH near 8, I use acidic pine bark (pH 4) to fix my clay. People root roses in sand. I read a book by a CA rose-grower on the coast (mild temperate climate), he bought a land filled with sand and converted into a rose nursery, to sell cut-flowers !! Here's an excerpt from Houzz when I googled on clay .. folks in CA have heavy abode clay, while I have dolomitic clay. But both are mineral-rich clay. Kittymoonbeam have over 100+ roses in Southern CA, wrote this in Houzz .. from my experience I agree with her 100% .. I killed plenty of roses with acidic organic matter in the planting hole. And Roses Unlimited's tip of 1 cup of alfalfa meal mix-in WORKS ONLY FOR THEIR ALKALINE-TAP WATER inside nursery, but NOT FOR OUTDOOR ACIDIC RAIN, with pH 4.5 in my Chicagoland, and even more acidic rain on the East Coast. Kittymoonbeam - "I just came from a soils class by a local nurseryman. He said DON'T add organic amendment into the soil. The plants only tolerate it, not prosper in it. The short of it is that eventually it breaks down and rots causing oxygen problems in the root zone. A NASA guy said NO terrestrial plant wants to live in ground up dead tree. So most potting soils are only good for maybe 5 months, then they start harming plants. The growers know the plants can only survive a short period before they decline in that mix. Potting up in non amended soil causes no harm. You can grow in 100 percent sand as long as you water and feed often enough. Strawberry leaves from plants grown in sand were twice the size of those in the premium potting mix! There are no overwatering issues. Why the change from propagation in soil to wood products is a long story. However, we've all been taught to do it. But no one ever used to in the old days. Disneyland removed their riverbed soil and replaced with amended soil. After a few years, they took it all out and purchased new riverbed sandy loam and now they only mulch on top. This is all new to me but that's the way it was for millions of years. The organic stuff stays on top where it breaks down and travels to the roots below. Roots want a purely mineral soil with as much oxygen as they can get and still be moist." Kittymoonbeam. Lauren (Los Angeles, 10a, Sunset Zone 19) - kittymoonbeam, that does seem to make sense. Limited personal experience has also showed me that top dressing compost with shredded leaves/mulch produced better results than than simply mixing some compost into the surrounding soil" Lauren

Msgirl: Your Nicole Carol Miller is very healthy & nice leaves. Cottagegarden: I went out to check my rootings in shade ... noticed few tree-leaves that haven't decomposed yet. Then it dawned on me that leaves from trees can change the surface pH of soil. I have 2 river birch trees (seedless variety), 1 Heritage Birch (very vigorous), and 2 white birch. I tested the pH of the bark on my Heritage Birch tree: very acidic, more so than pine-bark. My lawn near birch trees is lush & dark green & no dandelions. But the lawn in front with less trees is chlorotic (pale), and lots of dandelions. Since Heritage birch is vigorous, it secrets plenty of acid to go through my rock-hard clay. Its leaves are quite acidic, thus fertilized my lawn to a deep green. I don't rake leaves in the fall. If the soil sample has leaves in it, it will change to acidic. It takes years before the leaves are fully composted to neutral pH. For pH values of fresh leaves: http://www.asecular.com/forests/phleaves.htm Most acidic is Eastern Redbud (pH 4.3), Virgninia pine (pH 4.4), sugar maple (4.5), black maple (5.4), black walnut (pH 4.6), white oak (4.6), black oak (5 to 5.5), white ash (5.8 to 6.1), American Beech (5.8 to 6.9), flowering dogwood (5.5 to 6), Slipper elm (7 to 7.9), Hackberry at pH 8.