I have been battling slugs for 2 season , going into 3rd. And I want to share my experience and opinion. 1- What is called slug/snail BAIT is just misleading. When they crawl over the stuff they get injured and sort of bleed to death. So slugs do not eat the stuff. Or I don't think so. 2- Best (The Best) way to control s/s is to hunt them and destroy them. Start early in the season (Now is the right time in my area). I get a bamboo skewer (with a sharp tip) and just skew them one after another, as many as I can find (Like a shish kabob: (grin)). I can find them during the day when it is lightly raining or it is over cast. In sunny days, get a flashlight after dark. DON'T FORGET THE SKEWER. haha 3- I mix slug stuff + coffee ground + sand + ground egg shell. This way I use it generously as coffee ground, sand egg shell is at no cost. I have seen them running away from it while bleeding and eventually dying a short distance away. 4- you can cover your seedling/small plants with nylon tulle. Very effective for s/s, flea beetles and earwigs too. Once the plants become mature the damage is not critical although not desirable. Continue killing them, NON-STOP. BUT the MOST effective way is hunting them. This way you reduce the population. I can tell that two years ago(about this time) they were all over grazing like goats. But this year I have hard time finding the, So far I have hunted half a dozen of the. They used to chump the iris last couple of years. This year the irises are unaffected (so far). There is no easy way, I can admit. BTW: today is lightly raining. I will go out in a while to check. Later on I can sleep at nights without worrying. hehe

Many western soils are somewhat alkaline. My own garden has a pH up around 8 to 8.5. The soil sits on a limestone bedrock. It is very good for the growing of grapes, and yes, there are several excellent wineries within a couple miles of my house. We probably should have a hobby vineyard, but that would really be a lot of work. Instead I have planted mostly native trees and shrubs outside the fence and my roses within it. And yes, I have had chlorosis problems with some roses, mostly HPs and rugosas. The most severely affected I gave up on. There are so many that are happy here that I decided not to baby the unhappy ones. Well, I do make some exceptions. However recently I have noticed that many of my peonies, both tree and herbaceous, become very chlorotic immediately after blooming. For some it starts while blooming is taking place, obviously a time of higher nutritional need. I do not allow them to produce seeds. Just the other day I gave them all a good foliar spray and watering with chelated iron. I am hopeful that this will restore them to better health. Note: good old Festiva Maxima is the most resistant to this effect. Now that is one tough peony, and gorgeous as well! Folly

I've got one hosta bed under a huge pine and the slugs here don't mind those needles at all. My slugs also don't fall for the beer traps, at all. I found sluggo to be completely ineffective here as well. I would go out and find slugs on a hosta when there was Sluggo all around that it they could be eating instead. I've heard Bug-Getta (metaldehyde) is quite effective but can't risk it with my dogs. Haven't had any luck with coffee grounds, after it rains once. I may try the D. Earth next year on my potted minis, but having to reapply rings around big hosta every time it rains or you water sounds like a major hassle I have made copper rings out of thick copper foil and found that to work great- IF you can fix it so that the slugs cannot crawl under the ring or access the plant from a neighboring plant that overlaps, etc. You need to make sure there aren't any baby slugs or eggs in there before you put the ring on. Also, the copper must be at least three inches high. I captured a slug and placed it within a copper ring and observed him for an hour or two. He would try to crawl out- he'd get about 2" up and then head back down. He tried several times and then gave up. The ones I have in copper rings have had either no or minimal damage. It's not foolproof, but it's a pretty good deterrant. And the other thing I do is lay out bits of lettuce all over the place, which they like more than hosta, believe it or not. Then I go out at night and/or early morning and look for them on or near the lettuce and spray them with the diluted ammonia. I kill thousands that way. p.s. I captured a slug yesterday and tested out a ring of crushed oyster shells around it, thinking he might not like that texture. Slug didn't seem to mind crawling over that at all, even though pieces of shell were sticking to it like breading! In fact I think he kind of liked it because once he got out of the ring, he went back in. I've also tested sand and sandpaper and those didn't work, either.

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?