Hello all,
I planted some marigolds in two different locations in our garden on Saturday. I was watering the garden just now and have noticed that, in one of the locations, the marigolds have been almost completely eaten, with only the stem left sticking up out of the ground. What little blighters have been doing this, and how can I get rid of them?
Thanks, as always, in advance.
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Deer? Sheep? Neighbour keep a goat? Those will all eat flowers.
I can't think of a bird that would eat the whole flower.
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>>What little blighters have been doing this
=L'escargot.
>>and how can I get rid of them
=Use plants they wont eat.
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slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails earwigs.
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Slugs and snails probably, they love them. You need plenty of slug pellets all around the plants to keep them from being eaten !
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>> You need plenty of slug pellets ..........
Good quality slug pellets contain 3% w/w metaldehyde (the active ingredient) but cheap slug pellets contain only 1.5%. Check the ingredients before you buy.
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>> Slugs and snails probably, they love them. You need plenty of slug pellets all around
>> the plants to keep them from being eaten !
No you don't. There are other methods that stop slugs getting to the plants. Slug pellets and poisoned slugs are fatal to hedgehogs. Particularly as they are now endangered.
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>> >> Slugs and snails probably, they love them. You need plenty of slug pellets all
>> around
>> >> the plants to keep them from being eaten !
>>
>> No you don't. There are other methods that stop slugs getting to the plants. Slug
>> pellets and poisoned slugs are fatal to hedgehogs. Particularly as they are now endangered.
>>
No hedgehogs here. The local badgers - a sett consisting of over 20 active holes - eat them. They also eat - inter alia - my strawberries , my pears and crap all over one of my flower beds..
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Ask to be part of the cull then!!!!
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The effect of poisoned slugs on hedgehogs has been studied with results showing that there is no danger other than perhaps depriving them of a food source.
cesandiego.ucdavis.edu/files/54211.pdf
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Me :o)
Marigolds are an edible flower, sometimes posh kitchens garnish sandwiches etc with them and largely to horrify people at works do's I tended to eat them.
No special taste, but the look on other peoples' faces makes it worth while.
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>> Me :o)
>> No special taste, but the look on other peoples' faces makes it worth while.
I like 'em, but the rubber leaves a bit of an aftertaste.
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Is there a Labrador about? Trust me on this one.
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Some of mine have also been eaten while we were away but the Muntjack was in the garden again yesterday with a very guilty look on his face!
Pat
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Local snails eat every marigold I plants unless I puts down slug pellets..
Now my marigold gloves last for years.. so plastic plants might be the solution.
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Slugs are creatures of habit, as well as vindictive. Once they find a particular plant they like they come back every night until it is devastated. Yet they will leave another identical plant completely unmolested.
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Must be awful, being molested by a slug.
Just saying.
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I can't claim any personal experience of growing marigolds, but the fact that the stems have been left suggests that culprit is not a mammalian herbivore - they would polish the lot off. It's always best to carefully watch for, and identify the muncher - sometimes green caterpillars are extremely difficult to spot.
If the damage is occurring overnight though, the chances are that it is slugs/snails as previously suggested. Beware how you interpret "You need plenty of slug pellets"; a few years ago in our village someone put a heavy dose of slug pellets down on their borders and their dog picked them up and died. Most slug pellets are formulated on a wheat bran base to be more attractive to slugs than nice green leaves but alas, dogs love it.
If you can still get hold of them as an amateur, the most effective pellets contain the active ingredient methiocarb - but you don't need many! I suggest that you put some down in the affected area and have a look next morning. If slugs/snails are the problem, then you will see loads of bodies and slime trails. If there are lots of slugs, then you may need to put some more pellets down. But ALWAYS read the label!
Before retiring, I had 28 years in the crop protection industry working for one of the largest companies and, more recently, have assisted on the help-line of a garden products company.
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I am an expert on slugs and snails and their damage assessment. We have a 20 acre boggy field next to our garden... it's a combination of training pad and launch area for mulluscs seeking to eat their way through our garden...
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It could actually be a mouse.
My mother gave me some Cosmos daisies which she had grown from seed. I had about 12 plants in trays which I left on my decking with a view to planting them out when I had the time.
Over a period of days the plants were steadily munched back to stalks.
It was only when I saw a mouse picking up stalks and scurrying away with them that I realised what was causing their demise.
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Thanks to all of you for your help.
We're in suburbia (as The Pet Shop Boys once sang) so it probably isn't goats or deer, unless there's a new breed of Stealth Deer living at the bottom of our garden!
I'm not keen on slug pellets as we have a pooch who is daft enough to eat them, and I'd much rather lose the marigolds. It's no big deal really as the plants were only £2.49 for the tray and took me ten minutes to plant. I'll just buy something less attractive to the little beggars!
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Rob, google ' plants wot snails won't eat ' . They give good ideas of things that are safe...Begonias, Geraniums and lots of other stuff.
That's all we planted on the estate and in the pots this year and it's all going swimmingly atm.
Ted
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Maybe a feral peacock is the culprit?
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>> Maybe a feral peacock is the culprit?
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Or ostriches or feral wallabies?
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>> Maybe a feral peacock is the culprit?
If there was one near you'd know, even if you didn't see it: they're very noisy things.
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>> even if you didn't see it: they're very noisy things.
Tell me about it!!
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Mystery Marigold Muncher - Armel Coussine
