Advice needed on protecting miniature Sunflowers....

[FlowerpotGirl]

I brought a beautiful dwarf sunflower at the weekend and was horrified to find it covered in slime the next morning, and missing half a flower.

I've relocated it from the flower bed to a rough cement style plant pot and put small slate chippings over the soil. So far so good. Slugs and snails are such a pain. I'd never put pellets down as I'm trying to help the hedgehog population, but its so disheartening to have a healthy plant near destroyed overnight.

[Jungle Jane]

Try putting a circle of sand around the stems,ok if it doesn't rain might need reapplying you know. They can eat through the stem & drop a plant before you know they're there!

[SusieG]

Here are two of my baby sunflowers 'Evening Sun' - quite small, but looking quite perky..!

[Jonny.D]

Reading this thread, I realised I'd forgotten to put down slug pellets after the recent heavy rain, sure enough something had been in for a munch

[Herbsandveg]

I brought a beautiful dwarf sunflower at the weekend and was horrified to find it covered in slime the next morning, and missing half a flower.

I've relocated it from the flower bed to a rough cement style plant pot and put small slate chippings over the soil. So far so good. Slugs and snails are such a pain. I'd never put pellets down as I'm trying to help the hedgehog population, but its so disheartening to have a healthy plant near destroyed overnight.

Sorry to hear that, Flowerpotgirl, and further apologies for the late reply, but I've only just seen your post.

I'm trying out some wool pellets again this week. I tried them once before, but I can't femember if they worked. Has any any comments on these, please, as to whether they were a success at all for you?

[Herbsandveg]

Try putting a circle of sand around the stems,ok if it doesn't rain might need reapplying you know. They can eat through the stem & drop a plant before you know they're there!

As I only know too well, JungleJane!

I've never tried using sand as a deterrent to anything, but I'll chain give it a spin if I can get any from somewhere...

[Herbsandveg]

Here are two of my baby sunflowers 'Evening Sun' - quite small, but looking quite perky..!

They look pretty healthy to me. Any sign of any buds yet on the plants?

[Gillykat]

...but slugs are another thing! I can imagine them waiting until my bedroom light goes off, and then sneaking out from under the soil like a giant Polaris submarine and torpedoing my plants with the loss of all hands...or leaves, to be exact...

Yep...that's pretty much how they do it! Except in my case they wait until I lock up the allotment and emerge to home in on what I've just planted out!

I now start most things in pots or seed trays and plant them out when they're big enough to survive a few sluggy nibbles I have a few small Teddy Bear sunflowers next to the front path which are a tad nibbled so I think I may just lift those and put them in a container. French Marigolds disappear as quick as chocolate does when I'm around so they too rarely get planted in the ground until they're almost in bud.
I prefer to garden with Nature and won't kill things (I prefer to collect them up and relocate them in a nearby park) but must admit there's times I've said a few most unladylike words You soon learn what can be sown straight in the ground and what needs barbed wire and electric fence protection

[Herbsandveg]

Yep...that's pretty much how they do it! Except in my case they wait until I lock up the allotment and emerge to home in on what I've just planted out!

I now start most things in pots or seed trays and plant them out when they're big enough to survive a few sluggy nibbles I have a few small Teddy Bear sunflowers next to the front path which are a tad nibbled so I think I may just lift those and put them in a container. French Marigolds disappear as quick as chocolate does when I'm around so they too rarely get planted in the ground until they're almost in bud.
I prefer to garden with Nature and won't kill things (I prefer to collect them up and relocate them in a nearby park) but must admit there's times I've said a few most unladylike words You soon learn what can be sown straight in the ground and what needs barbed wire and electric fence protection

I don't like killing things either, Gilly, and I even feel really guilty when I thin out my veg seedlings as we almost always have to do. Gardening has the image of being a very gentle pastime, but it's really a life and death battle every day!

[Gillykat]

I cannot bear to 'cull' seedlings either!!!! I'll do my best to carefully separate them and pot them on and nurture them until they can stand on their own two feet (or should that be roots?). It's only this year that I have started to become a bit more 'ruthless' and remove any flowers that aren't giving me any enjoyment For example: I grew some catmint last year in the flower bed but it got swamped by cosmos and I only discovered the plants holding their own at barely six inches tall in the autumn as I tidied up. I moved them to the polytunnel as a kind of holding bay until I sorted out a proper bed for them. This was around late October and they happily settled in and survived ok over the winter. Come the warmer spring weather however they hot up before my eyes and I stupidly let them get TOO leggy and eventually planted them out when they were 4ft tall!!! The transplant didn't work and they looked miserable and flopped everywhere for weeks and irritated the hell out of me every time I looked at them It was only this Tuesday when I finally admitted to myself they weren't doing anything and I couldn't stand the sight of them so they were uprooted and chucked on the compost heap! I may start some more from seed in the next week or two but I'll be keeping them in pots so they're more controllable!

[Herbsandveg]

On 'culling' ickle plants...

I cannot bear to 'cull' seedlings either!!!! I'll do my best to carefully separate them and pot them on and nurture them until they can stand on their own two feet (or should that be roots?). It's only this year that I have started to become a bit more 'ruthless' and remove any flowers that aren't giving me any enjoyment For example: I grew some catmint last year in the flower bed but it got swamped by cosmos and I only discovered the plants holding their own at barely six inches tall in the autumn as I tidied up. I moved them to the polytunnel as a kind of holding bay until I sorted out a proper bed for them. This was around late October and they happily settled in and survived ok over the winter. Come the warmer spring weather however they hot up before my eyes and I stupidly let them get TOO leggy and eventually planted them out when they were 4ft tall!!! The transplant didn't work and they looked miserable and flopped everywhere for weeks and irritated the hell out of me every time I looked at them It was only this Tuesday when I finally admitted to myself they weren't doing anything and I couldn't stand the sight of them so they were uprooted and chucked on the compost heap! I may start some more from seed in the next week or two but I'll be keeping them in pots so they're more controllable!

Now, you mentioned composting, and that's the only possible way that I can justify culling plants. I simply tell the plants (whilst trying to convince my doubting self) that I'm not actually killing them, but merely relocating them to the greater biological process, and expanding their horizons from the relative narrowness of plant form into a wider, more universal distribution as compost. The only problem with this is that it doesn't really quite convince me, and the plants don't look like that want to buy it, either!