Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

Hi

I planted a fairly large bronze phormium earlier in the summer and just
the other day noticed that it looked as though it had lost some leaves,
almost half in fact! On closer inspection I found that lots of the
large leaves looked chewed through, as well as new growth, and can only
assume it's slugs and snails. I didn't think that a large plant would
succumb as easily as the smaller ones do or be as palatable to the pests
- I don't know how I'm going to protect it either unless I resort to
pellets which I don't like using. Any ideas anyone?

Thanks
Lynda

In article , Janet Baraclough
writes
The message
from Lynda Thornton contains these words:

Hi

I planted a fairly large bronze phormium earlier in the summer and just
the other day noticed that it looked as though it had lost some leaves,
almost half in fact! On closer inspection I found that lots of the
large leaves looked chewed through, as well as new growth, and can only
assume it's slugs and snails. I didn't think that a large plant would
succumb as easily as the smaller ones do or be as palatable to the pests
- I don't know how I'm going to protect it either unless I resort to
pellets which I don't like using. Any ideas anyone?

I've had snails chew holes out of young emerging phormium leaves
while they're still relatively soft , foldedand small. Then as the leaf
lengthens and expands, so does the pattern of holes :-( I grow many
different phormiums but only purple kinds seem to be affected.. However,
this snail activity doesn't actually kill any leaves on my plants, they
just look unsightly. I've found that a small scatter of slug pellets
well down into the foliage sheaves solves it (not much chance of birds
or hedgehogs getting in there to consume the corpses).

It's not clear from your post whether your plant lost half its leaves
because some sheaves turned brown and died ? If so, that may indicate
some other problem in the plant, not connected to the snail-holes.


Janet

Hi Janet

No it's not dying from anything, it's just missing half its leaves due
to being chewed to bits! I think this happened fairly quickly, one day
it seemed fine and the next it wasn't - I have no idea why the snails
should choose to do this but I think I will use some pellets just on
this plant as I would hate to lose it. It's a tenax purpureum if that's
spelt correctly. I have another one, a dwarf bronze one with twisty
leaves that doesn't seem to have been attacked the same way but I might
put some preventative pellets on that too just in case.

Thanks
Lynda

Yeah sure, Lynda.

Why not put out some pellets for deer and rabbits while you're at it?


"Lynda Thornton" wrote in message
...
In article , Janet Baraclough
writes
The message
from Lynda Thornton contains these words:

Hi

I planted a fairly large bronze phormium earlier in the summer and just
the other day noticed that it looked as though it had lost some leaves,
almost half in fact! On closer inspection I found that lots of the
large leaves looked chewed through, as well as new growth, and can only
assume it's slugs and snails. I didn't think that a large plant would
succumb as easily as the smaller ones do or be as palatable to the pests
- I don't know how I'm going to protect it either unless I resort to
pellets which I don't like using. Any ideas anyone?

I've had snails chew holes out of young emerging phormium leaves
while they're still relatively soft , foldedand small. Then as the leaf
lengthens and expands, so does the pattern of holes :-( I grow many
different phormiums but only purple kinds seem to be affected.. However,
this snail activity doesn't actually kill any leaves on my plants, they
just look unsightly. I've found that a small scatter of slug pellets
well down into the foliage sheaves solves it (not much chance of birds
or hedgehogs getting in there to consume the corpses).

It's not clear from your post whether your plant lost half its leaves
because some sheaves turned brown and died ? If so, that may indicate
some other problem in the plant, not connected to the snail-holes.


Janet

Hi Janet

No it's not dying from anything, it's just missing half its leaves due
to being chewed to bits! I think this happened fairly quickly, one day
it seemed fine and the next it wasn't - I have no idea why the snails
should choose to do this but I think I will use some pellets just on
this plant as I would hate to lose it. It's a tenax purpureum if that's
spelt correctly. I have another one, a dwarf bronze one with twisty
leaves that doesn't seem to have been attacked the same way but I might
put some preventative pellets on that too just in case.

Thanks
Lynda

Lynda Thornton wrote:
I planted a fairly large bronze phormium earlier in the summer and just
the other day noticed that it looked as though it had lost some leaves,
almost half in fact! On closer inspection I found that lots of the
large leaves looked chewed through,
(snip)
I might
put some preventative pellets on that too just in case.

Hi Lynda. Before you go off to buy some pellets now, perhaps you'd
consider looking into copper rings to put around your plant until next
spring when you'll get lots more slugs/snails? Then, you can hunt them
for 1 week or 2 which will very much get rid of most of them. I have
used copper rings for 2 years now - in both my gardens and allotment.
It's a very clever device and leaves your concience intact :o)

In article . com, La
puce writes

Lynda Thornton wrote:
I planted a fairly large bronze phormium earlier in the summer and just
the other day noticed that it looked as though it had lost some leaves,
almost half in fact! On closer inspection I found that lots of the
large leaves looked chewed through,
(snip)
I might
put some preventative pellets on that too just in case.

Hi Lynda. Before you go off to buy some pellets now, perhaps you'd
consider looking into copper rings to put around your plant until next
spring when you'll get lots more slugs/snails? Then, you can hunt them
for 1 week or 2 which will very much get rid of most of them. I have
used copper rings for 2 years now - in both my gardens and allotment.
It's a very clever device and leaves your concience intact :o)

Hi

I've got some copper tape which I've used before to construct barriers,
but this plant is quite large and I don't think it will be very easy to
stop slugs etc climbing up the leaves from elsewhere or up through the
soil underneath, but I might try it to see if it has any effect.

Lynda

Lynda Thornton wrote:
I've got some copper tape which I've used before to construct barriers,
but this plant is quite large and I don't think it will be very easy to
stop slugs etc climbing up the leaves from elsewhere or up through the
soil underneath, but I might try it to see if it has any effect.

Good luck! I find investing in the copper metal rings rather than the
tape is good value really. They get a lovely greyish colour eventually
and kinda blend in the garden. Cutting a few low branches of your
phormium would minimise climbing slugs.

Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

Janet Baraclough wrote:
Good luck! I find investing in the copper metal rings rather than the
tape is good value really. They get a lovely greyish colour eventually
and kinda blend in the garden. Cutting a few low branches of your
phormium would minimise climbing slugs.

Phormiums aren't shrubs and don't have branches. It's a clump of
leaves, each one growing from ground level and each can reach a couple
of metres long.. Down in the middle of the jungle is where snails love
to hide out You'd need a couple of metres of copper tape to surround the
base of a large phormium clump.

Well yes ...! Silly I agree. It's hard to find branches on a monocot
plant ;o) I wrote phormium thinking of my copper rings and what I do to
minimise the slugs reaching the plant using branches and leaves as
little bridges. Indeed it wouldn't work on them. My friend has an
enormous one and is plague by mice apparently. They chew the leaves
like if they were celery sticks ... Would you think that's a
possibility?

Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

In article .com, La
puce writes

Janet Baraclough wrote:
Good luck! I find investing in the copper metal rings rather than the
tape is good value really. They get a lovely greyish colour eventually
and kinda blend in the garden. Cutting a few low branches of your
phormium would minimise climbing slugs.

Phormiums aren't shrubs and don't have branches. It's a clump of
leaves, each one growing from ground level and each can reach a couple
of metres long.. Down in the middle of the jungle is where snails love
to hide out You'd need a couple of metres of copper tape to surround the
base of a large phormium clump.

Well yes ...! Silly I agree. It's hard to find branches on a monocot
plant ;o) I wrote phormium thinking of my copper rings and what I do to
minimise the slugs reaching the plant using branches and leaves as
little bridges. Indeed it wouldn't work on them. My friend has an
enormous one and is plague by mice apparently. They chew the leaves
like if they were celery sticks ... Would you think that's a
possibility?

Hi
Actually as I've seen 2 different kinds of mouse in the garden it
wouldn't be beyond the bounds at all. I'll have to study the chewed
edges and see what they look like! Also, something has been having a
major go at a liriope 'moneymaker' that I put in earlier in the year
too, and that has similar, but smaller, strap-like leaves. I didn't
think either the phormium or the liriope made obvious candidates for
being eaten to bits ...

Lynda

Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

Janet Baraclough wrote:
No I didn't, please mind your attributions

?!! You will find that if you go back to Lynda's post you'll see that
what was written was 'Lynda wrote ...'. And the 'good luck' was in fact
me who wrote it.

I've noticed that you've done this a few times before, more recently in
the compost thread - when you stated that 'some poster' said that his
compost was 'rubbish', and you kept my name on it making a sarcastic
comment, when in fact it was someone else talking about his own compost
being rubbish at the moment for he has had little to put on it.

You'll find the problem is at your end!

My friend has an
enormous one and is plague by mice apparently. They chew the leaves
like if they were celery sticks ... Would you think that's a
possibility?

Yes, or voles. I once lost an entire crop of leeks to rodents who
gnawed them down like beavers :-(

I've lost leeks in the past, even my sweet corns this year must have
been eaten by a giant badger, seeing the carnage I was left with - but
loosing a phormium to roddents is amazing. You'd think they don't have
anything else to eat!!

Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

Janet Baraclough wrote:
No I didn't, please mind your attributions
?!! You will find that if you go back to Lynda's post you'll see that
what was written was 'Lynda wrote ...'. And the 'good luck' was in fact
me who wrote it.

That's right, you did. But in your badly edited post, of which the
above is yet another example, you made it appear that I said "goodluck"
and advised investing in copper etc. I did not and would not. It's crap
advice for the OP as my reply made clear.That's why I asked you to mind
your attributions and not make out your own crap advice came from me.
Here is your wrongly atributed post as archived in google.

Jesus Janet! That was *your* reply! Go back on the thread and see. I
cannot be asked to do this for you.
I've noticed that you've done this a few times before, more recently in
the compost thread -

(snip)

Garbage. I replied to two posts by greengentle, quoting what s/he said
about his /her own compost being rubbish . "La Puce" did not appear in
my post at all, so saying I "kept your name on it" is complete nonsense.

The quote 'Zillions of gardeners CAN be wrong' is from me Janet!
Replying to
this with 'looks like you might be one of them' is not nice.

"gentlegreen" wrote
snipped
Zillions of gardeners CAN be wrong ;-)

That is not from 'gentlegreen' but from me!! Get your attributions
right before
complaining about others. You could have made a mistake.

La Puce, you clearly haven't a clue how usenet works. Your silly and
hopelessly confused reply to my polite request makes that obvious.
Google's archive isn't subject to anomalies in anyone's software. It
proves you cocked up, repeatedly.
I suggest you learn how to read attributions, posts, edits and threads
correctly, and how to edit your own and other peoples' posts correctly.
Otherwise you will disrupt threads, and mislead other posters about who
said what to whom.
Spout your own rubbish if you must...regular readers soon learn which
authors to ignore. Just don't twist and misrepresent what other
posters said.

Well. Thank you. Welcome to you too. I don't find you polite nor nice.
So perhaps we ought to leave it at that.

Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

The message . com
from "La puce" contains these words:


The quote 'Zillions of gardeners CAN be wrong' is from me Janet!

Wrong.

The thread header is "grr Monty Don perpetuating compost myths" .
Google's archive proves, in message 5 by Gentlegreen, that the above
quote was written by Gentlegreen.

You're making similar attribution and quoting errors with other
authors' posts in another thread.

Janet.

Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

Janet Baraclough wrote:

The quote 'Zillions of gardeners CAN be wrong' is from me Janet!
Wrong.

Sorry, I say 'zillions' all the time. It's kinda my trade mark :o)

Why don't you ask Gentlegreen.

The thread header is "grr Monty Don perpetuating compost myths" .
Google's archive proves, in message 5 by Gentlegreen, that the above
quote was written by Gentlegreen.
You're making similar attribution and quoting errors with other
authors' posts in another thread.

Janet. Get a life.

Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

The message .com
from "La puce" contains these words:


Janet Baraclough wrote:

The quote 'Zillions of gardeners CAN be wrong' is from me Janet!
Wrong.

Sorry, I say 'zillions' all the time. It's kinda my trade mark :o)

You used i"zillions" in another post in that thread. But that does
not mean, that every post in the thread containing the word zillions,
was written by you. Gentlegreen also used the word zillions in a
separate comment quoted verbatim above . Have you got it yet? Two
people used "zillions" in that thread, one of them was not you, I
replied to the one that wasn't you. All that stuff about me quoting YOUR
zillions post, is claptrap.


Why don't you ask Gentlegreen.

No need; google's irrefutable evidence that she wrote the quote
above, is there for all to see.

The thread header is "grr Monty Don perpetuating compost myths" .
Google's archive proves, in message 5 by Gentlegreen, that the above
quote was written by Gentlegreen.
You're making similar attribution and quoting errors with other
authors' posts in another thread.

Janet. Get a life.

It's a simple issue. You wrongly attached my name to advice and
opinions I don't agree with and did not write. I asked you politely not
to do that and you responded with denial and further unfounded
inaccuracies about my posts. You consistently deny the proofs that
you're wrong, so one can only assume you're a deliberate troublemaker.

Janet.

Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

In article ,
Janet Baraclough wrote:
The message .com
from "La puce" contains these words:

Sorry, I say 'zillions' all the time. It's kinda my trade mark :o)

You used i"zillions" in another post in that thread. But that does
not mean, that every post in the thread containing the word zillions,
was written by you. Gentlegreen also used the word zillions in a
separate comment quoted verbatim above . Have you got it yet? Two
people used "zillions" in that thread, one of them was not you, I
replied to the one that wasn't you. All that stuff about me quoting YOUR
zillions post, is claptrap.

I have been using the word, in speech and postings, for 20-30 years.
I misremember exactly when I started to do so. The first reference
in the OED is to something of Damon Runyon in 1944, and there was a
use in Esquire in 1947.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Are slugs and snails eating phormium?
 

Nick Maclaren wrote:
I have been using the word, in speech and postings, for 20-30 years.
I misremember exactly when I started to do so. The first reference
in the OED is to something of Damon Runyon in 1944, and there was a
use in Esquire in 1947.

Here you have it. And in 2005 La puce said it, followed by Gentlegreen.


I knew I would be remembered for something. Now, that Damon Runyon, did
he use The Word appropriately? It's important you see. Just think if
Janet hear about this!!