Well, now some of you have me concerned that the leaves from my cottonwood trees are going to form a matted water barrier! I was hoping to just let them lie where they fall as winter protection for my roses. Any thoughts?

I don't grow roses, but I cannot imagine your cootonwood leaves causing a problem. My late father had huge ones and never removed leaves from his landscape plants. He only mowed over them when cutting his lawn.

I don't have cottonwoods but I mulch my roses with leaves each fall. No problems. And I never bother to chop them.

I have no deciduous trees at all, so I don't know. But I've read that too thick a layer of mulch, and especially whole-leaf mulch, if always moist underneath, can attract and protect slugs.

Not that I need to know, but I wonder what the relative slug risk is, among leaves, big wood chips, and bark chunks? I'm guessing that it comes down to "don't keep the soil surface TOO wet". And hence, "don't make the mulch layer TOO thick".

Or maybe thick mulch is OK as long as weather is so cold that slugs are totally inactive, but needs to be thinned out well before last frost.

Mulch attracts slugs. I use leaves, if I don't have leaves, I use thick layers of straw. The downside is my garden always has plenty of slugs! I need ducks to come eat them.

Apparently for every upside, there is a downside. Use slug-bait. I use it routinely in both greenhouses. I have no leaves anywhere near my greenhouses but still get the occasional slug.

I use Sluggo (or some iron phosphate product) twice, a few weeks before spring planting. And, as I mentioned elsewhere, I use pine needle much and I think that deters slugs, too.

Karen

I use Sluggo myself. It does help a lot and is a very good product. But I could never get the majority of slugs that are here. There are just too many of them. However, I still would never give up my thick carpet of mulch.

I am usually only tormented by slugs in our wet spring months. Our summers tend to be too dry for them.

Karen

They don't appear to be a problem here, thank goodness!

Where I am, some years they are awful, and some years just a nuisance.

I do use bait, and also beer saucers.

Scissors work well as disgusting as it is.

pirl said:Scissors work well as disgusting as it is.

EW! LOL I prefer salt to watch them suffer.

For that matter, they're easy enough to squish between your fingers.

Karen

Yuck!!!

The big ones don't squish but the very tiny snails do.

Enough gross anatomy!

One person suggested keeping a spray bottle filled with diluted household ammonia near any slug promenade areas. With the spray dialed to a "jet" or "squirt" setting, she could kill slugs from a distance, and dissolve egg masses.

Since then, someone told me that really BIG slugs aren't killed if the ammonia is dilute enough that it won't bother leaves of tender plants.

Next spring, I'm going to try some experiments.

Do you suppose rubbing alcohol would work? I use it for nasty flying insects to good effect.

I use 8% vinegar to spot kill weeds, and it works well on slugs as well.