Hostas and pests - volume 3
As the title suggests we have already visited this subject twice already in our newsletters:

• What to do about slugs and snails: introducing our 'St. Valentine's Day Massacre' characters - February 2007
  
  
• Over wintering your hostas - October 2007

We suspect, as a reader of this newsletter, you are in the 'real gardener' category so we don't need to preach to the converted, but why do people get so defeatist about pest and disease problems? Weeds are only plants growing in the wrong place so we are happy to remove them - why can't pests be treated in the same way? We encountered one very argumentative lady at a show a couple of years ago, who would insist that she couldn't grow hostas. We thought it was worth sharing her strange conclusion, because we found it so funny.

So what do we do about pests?
We adopt the same principles with our pest control as with the rest of our business - we keep an open mind and experiment, trying different approaches in the hope that we can find the right combination, that will do the trick.
In gardening, spotting the first indications of pest damage is critical to successful treatment, but in many cases you need to ensure you start combating some pests before any damage becomes evident. As slug damage occurs when the shoots first emerge, it is really important to begin your annual treatment programme as soon as the weather begins to warm up - hence the idea of a 'St. Valentine's Day Massacre'.

Snails are the worst culprits as they thrive in the same environment that hostas love: cool and shady. Seek them out at the bottom of walls and hedges and around the base of your containers. Snails can travel the length of a cricket pitch in a single night for a good feed, so just chucking them into a neighbouring garden or field won't get rid of the problem. One customer told us she had tried to prove this by collecting a handful of snails, painting red nail varnish on their shells and chucking them on a local playing field. Sure enough later that week she found one back in her garden. So you need to take action and we find pellets the most effective option for our scale of operation.

We do undertake several cleaning operations throughout the year and manually remove slugs and snails. We need to do this to keep our plants looking in tip-top condition but also because vine weevil can take over very quickly unless you maintain a constant look-out. Vine weevil is a really annoying pest as it lays its eggs in soil and the larvae tend to bury themselves round the roots of the plant until they turn into the adult form. The larvae feed on the roots of the plant and the adults feed on the leaves and stems of the plants. The RHS website has some useful information about vine weevil, among other garden pests. The site also has an interesting poll on the top ten garden pests in 2007 - it is interesting to see that vine weevil was at number 3 for 2006 and 2007 but it is not something we ever hear people complaining about.

A recent introduction to our pest control programme is an organic mulch top dressing from Fine Naturals Ltd:

The redbush mulch is quite coarse to the touch and contains trace elements so both attributes act as a deterrent to slugs and snails. It looks and smells nicer than many top dressings and could be a winner in your garden. Why not give it a go, for more information contact Fine Naturals Ltd

Redbush mulch We are helping a new company trial their product on our plants. Rebush mulch is a by-product of the tea manufacturing process, so it is a great way of recycling what, to the tea industry, is a waste product.

1. Crush 2 large garlic bulbs
2. Add to 2 pints of water and boil for 3 minutes until blanched
3. Cool and strain
4. Use 1 tablespoon per gallon of water in a can with a rose
5. Poor over leaves in late afternoon. Repeat this every 14 days from when the shoots first appear. Use slug pellets until the leaves are up.