Negotiations

We have now moved/are moving past the threat to growing plants from the deer and onto the full-bore threat from the slugs.  Some years when we have pretty cold or pretty long winters, the slug populations seem to diminish somewhat, or at least to consist of smaller slugs.  This year, however, despite the long AND cold winter, the slugs are plentiful and sizable.  A friend reports that she and her husband are collecting a couple of hundred of an evening.  And I don’t ask what they are doing with this collection, but I doubt if it involves a happy, museum-type ending.

I try not to plant much that the slugs are interested in.  In my experience, they don't have much interest in peonies.  When we bought our house 18 years ago, there was one sizeable, pink peony growing.  It kept getting bigger and we bought three more of different colors (white, red-violent, and darker pink) to keep it company.  Then, two years ago, I decided it was time to address the aging condition of the original peony which had now begun to produce fewer blooms.  So one day in the fall, I had Ed dig it up for me.  It was an enormous root/corm/whatever that part of the peony is called.  I read and read on the internet and did as I was told:  cut it up in smaller pieces with several eyes at least in each section, let it dry for a bit, replanted it.  And replanted it.  And then replanted it a little more because there was so much, with great hopes that the planting depth was right, which seems to be a critical factor with peonies.

I re-planted maybe 40 of them, and their first spring, at least 30 of them showed up to join the circus that is my garden.  Only two or three of these new plants bloomed last year, but I was actually surprised that any of them did.  I thought they might need some time to grow up.  Now, here they are all back, but the slugs have decided, given the abundance, that they might at least try out peony stalks in the off chance that they’re worth the effort.  What they have done, apparently, is climb about six inches up the 10-inch stalk, nibble around on the under-side of the stalk and then decide they don’t taste good.  They jump off, I imagine, plummeting to the ground, shortly followed by the upper end of the stalk which now has insufficient support because of the wedge taken out below it.

Two peony stalks gone so far.  This may require more serious measures.  Or maybe I just share my bounteous peony stalks with the slugs if they can show some discretion.  I mean, when I last offered to share a dozen small dahlias with them, they ate them all overnight.