Spider wrote:

Thanks Baz, that is hugely reassuring! It's good to know it will take a
bit of winter punishment. I went out yesterday and had to *drag* a huge
slug off R. Victoria. UGH! (Have you ever seen a flying slug? :~})

Yes, often, and usually retreating very fast in a graceful arc.

Because slugs often chomp on frost damaged plants, and this slug was in
a hollowed stem, I was convinced something was very wrong. These two
crowns are so precious that I'm going to be paranoid until they sprout
in spring.

They will. It takes a lot to kill-off a rhubarb crown, though it will
reward you if you cosset it.

You have made me feel much better, thanks, and I may even
sleep tonight.

I have been advised only to dress the soil with bonemeal at planting
time to encourage rooting. In spring, I will feed it on chix poo
pellets .. then stand well back :~)

I'd be careful - chicken litter needs about two years' composting before
it's safe for use on some plants. If it pongs, it suggests to me that it
hasn't been composted long enough. The urea in it scorches, I believe.

I would give it a mulch of well-rotted horse, cow, or pig manure and
cover it with dead leaves or something similar, and feed the slugs with
some nice tasty pellets...

If you want smelly rhubarb fertiliser, wait until it starts sprouting
and steep nettles in water. When it smells absolutely disgusting it's a
fit meal for rhubarb (and tomatoes). Use sparingly and often, and
assuming you *WILL* leave the crowns unpulled (my advice would be to
leave them to their own devices for the first year), nettle sou^h^ugh!
is a good foliar feed - diluted.

Just remember, rhubarb is a damp-ground plant, and it's difficult to
give it too much water when it's in growth. It likes humus in the soil
too, so dress it regularly with compost. leaf-mould, well-rotted muck etc.

When you come to divide the crowns, lift them and replant some of the
satellite crowns, discarding the centre - or better, use the centre(s)
to force early rhubarb in a warm humid place in the early spring, *THEN*
discard them.

--
Rusty