Just a reminder for those that have raised gardens constructed of 2" X 10" lumber or similar, sprinkle a very small amount of Sluggo Plus up close and around the border of the bed. No need to sprinkle the bed itself unless you already have a known problem. Sprinkle the outside border again in the Spring as soon as the noses appear. This product is usually available at upscale garden centers or eBay. and a very little goes a long way. This is not a product endorsement and is meant for informational purposes only.

Thank you for the advice. guess I know what I am doing tonight

Lorn, I wished you had posted this thread a week ago.

I have something like 'raised beds' from liliums I propagated (from their own bulbils/bulblets and from scales). I used these styrofoam(?) boxes used for fish transport, with a lot of drainag holes and most even have 3 three slim styrofoam 'rails' glued on the bottom from the time I thought I could place them on the floor, so thad excess water could drain out freely.

Neglect occurs, specially when it is too cold for my osteoarhritic bones to work outdoors, so the tall asiatic hybrids have been in the boxes for 3 years now and a tiny asiatic for two. Much to my surprise, they thrived great on neglect: 3 large boxes with the tall lilies and a large box with the tiny ones, plus a small box with tiny asiatic babies. Two of the large asiatic lilies have produced 20 flower buds on each stem!

Since I have learned a bit from the previous years, and do not want that the rodents eat my beloved flowers, I stapled several boxes and placed the trays with my lily-treasures on top. Sure, the invading cows could have eaten them, but they did not - not these ones.

Three days ago I went to take a look and enjoy the development of these babies, and this is what I found in the large box with adult tiny lilies:

After watering them in the afternoon, slugs and snails had eaten them and left what you see. They come back every night, but there am I with a torch light (last round tonight at 3am) and kill them mercilessly

This small box has babies of the previous picture's lilies and has not had so much damage since I am taking revenge:



This planter contains asiatic lilies (yelllow and orange). The two stems in the middle of the picture are the ones with 20 flower buds each; I wonder why they attacked these two much more than the others in the same planter. The new lilies form bulbils are devastated:



The last picture shows how high I placed the planters:



Any suggestion? I would like to sleep a little more

Ursula, slugs often move along old slime trails, so if they start to attack one particular plant, they often come back night after night to it, while others nearby can be completely unharmed.

I'd try to water in the morning. If you water in the afternoon the extra moisture will attract slugs during the night. They can follow that moisture up to your lilies. Also check under your styrofoam boxes during the day as slugs love to hide in damp dark places during the day. They often attach themselves to the underside of things, so simply lifting the box may not be enough. Make sure to really look from all angels.

You can also make a beer trap from a plastic bottle: http://www.slugoff.co.uk/killi... The slug can't escape such a trap, so it can easily be emptied during the day. Worked very well for me, but the downside is that the smell horrible after a few days and they fill up very quickly. Also one needs to be aware that slugs may appear to be dead, but sometimes they are just drunk...

If you don't have an army of slugs, these small precautions may very well be enough, but there is no doubt that slug bait is the easiest method. I haven't tried baits with spinosad content as in Sluggo Plus as I'm only interested in controlling slugs, however for plain iron phosphate bait I highly recommend using it in a plastic container instead of sprinkling it on the ground as I have found this to work just as good. Sorry, this is in Swedish, but if you follow the link you can get an idea how it can look: http://www.snigelshopen.se/sni...
Easy to make a similar one yourself! I always place a few containers close to the compost heaps as these otherwise are breeding ground for slugs.The advantage is that the slug pellets will last longer than if put on the ground and if you put a stone on top of the container it will prevent most animals and birds from accidentally eating the pellets. There are some controversy around if some of the additives in iron phosphate based slug bait make it poisonous to other things than snails and slugs, so this is a good precaution in my mind.This is not in reference to the spinosad content in Sluggo Plus, rather there are other additives present to make the iron phosphate work.

William,

thank you so much for your input.

I am not comfortable with commercial snail/slug bait, as the product available here is poisonous to pets as well (my friend/neighbour is a Vet Md.), but I will try the beer trap.

Google is amazing: it translated from swedish to spanish (if you don't ask for perfection, it's OK - it's 'understandable'. Unfortunately, such traps are not available here, so I will go down to the village tomorrow an buy some beer. I don't mind the smell - these boxes are far from my cabin and from my usual working places.

Regarding watering, I MUST do it in the afternoon, to give the plants the chance to recover from a hot day and get prepared for the next. There was almost no transition from winter to heat. Until the last days of Oct. I had to heat the house on the evening/night. Today, we had 33°C and it will soon get worst.

I do look under the trays and always find snails.

It is kind of discouraging when you have to fight rabbits, other rodents, cows and now slugs and snails, but when you see the beauty of the Lilium flowers (and sometimes smell the scent), courage jumps back on you!

Thanks for being there!

I used Mini Slug Pellets or MPS when I was a commercial grower, they are blue, I had free ranging ducks and geese and cats, animals did NOT eat these. I lived in a good climate then but it did rain slugs. I got them from Wilber Ellis, Wilco and Cenex may have them also. The big box/home gardening stores will NOT have any. It comes in 50# bags and no - that is not too much for me and my tiny yard. (However, it is way too much for my crippled body)
I will have to get more since I am the only one gardening in this hellhole and all the slugs (and !@#$%* squirrels) come to my yard. Also the neighbors tree roots.