Late summer is a tough time of year for the garden. The rich autumn colors still haven't started to emerge and yet the majority of our favorite perennials are long past their prime season.This past weekend I was away for 4 days attending a seminar. While I was away, Long Island was socked with the remnants of a hurricane (down graded to a tropical storm). Walking around the garden today I noticed that not only were there many limbs and smaller branches littering my gardens, I saw that many of my hosta looked more like swiss cheese than pretty foliage.
Surprisingly though there were still many hosta with unblemished foliage. The above photo shows how Hosta 'Grand Marquee' looks today. Not only is it a late bloomer but as you can see, it is very slug resistant!
What about your hosta? Do you have varieties that are free of slug holes? If so, leave a comment here so everybody can see what works for you. I'm going to go around my garden again and try to make a longer list of Hosta that still look great.
12 comments:
One of my hostas, which is sieboldiana Elegans is preety slugs resistant. No holes seen so far in 3 years I grow it in my garden :)
Hi Melanie: I'm not sure if you're into this but I have given you an award as one of my favorite blogs. It's on my site ... I hope you don't mind!
I have no hostas that are slug proof. I do have locations that seem to be almost slug free. The odd thing is that they are just a few feet from the area showing the most slug damage.
Marnie
The supersized Hosta montana macrophylla and Sum and Substance stood up to both the hail and the slugs this year - also found that the much tinier June still looks quite pristine.
Hey! Long time no see. Have you not been posting or have you feeds just not been showing up? None of my hostas have holes in them, my gardens are new enough that the slugs must not have noticed them yet. I'm sure they will soon though.
Melanie, I have a hosta called Avocado and no slugs have bothered it this year. It is a beautiful specimen of a hosta too!
I wish I could tell you what ones are slug free, but our deer problem is worse than ever and I have almost no hostas, out of about 1200 varieties in the gardens, with any leaves left right now, even those potted ones for sale which are up on shelves. Yesterday midafternoon I caught 2 large does munching away there. I guess my slugs are going to starve this year.
Generally, though, heavy blue leaves seem to be less bothered and thin white ones turn to swiss cheese.
Jane
My hostas got blasted by hail rather than slugs this year (sigh). Your 'Grand Marquee' is gorgeous!!! I'll have to try to find it for Hawk's Haven.
No Hostas at Clay and Limestone Melanie...hardly any slugs that I have seen either. It's been dry. Maybe I should try them in containers and place those around the garden?
Gail
I have some hostas but they don't seem to do too good here. Maybe it's too hot. I do love them though & I'll keep trying. Someone suggested that I may not be fertilizing them enough. So I use a none chemical fertilizer.
Hi
I'm a gardener from Norway, and i like Hosta's too.
Slug Busters it's a lovely Hosta.
Yoy have so many nice picture's in your blog.
I think all our hostas have had slug attacks. It would be nice if they could resist a bit better. Yours looks good though!
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