Slug Damage and Heat Tolerance

[Peter Kohn]

Managed to divert from general nursery work to Meconopsis today. In the Botanic Gardens I was shocked to see how most of the baileyi plants which looked well set become perennial six weeks ago are now clearly fizzling out (or have already gone). Notable exception is 'Sue's Violet'. This has also survived better than straight baileyi in my own garden. Fortunately this year I made new plantings of meconopsis on the other side of the garden which is much shadier and here the plants look really healthy despite the heat.

In the nursery I moved on a mixed tray this afternoon, half and half baileyi MGS1 and gakyidiana. Most of the MGS! were pristine but all the gakyidiana were heavily chewed by slugs, One might have thought that our long hot dry summer would have inhibited the slugs - seems to be true for the general nursery but the shade frames are a haven for slugs even though they are also a haven for frogs.

[Blue Stu]

I've been planting up a patch of baileyii at the allotment over the past month or so, some from pots grown last year (& to varying degrees pot-bound), some of which haven't established well (in the dry weather) so I've replaced some from good plants grown this year. Today two of the newbies had collapsed, roots eaten up to the soil level. Digging them out, both had fat leatherjackets in the rootball, the obvious culprits.