Moerheim Beauty...

I am getting worried because I cannot find ours.......oh dear another one I must have dug up lol

I thought I didn't like Helenium until I saw this . . . gorgeous!

Mine hasn't started to flower yet and my sahins early has no buds even. Both first years. I found slugs & snails like them, kept pruning the new shoots:-)

Little s**s!! I hate that with new plants. Always ring them round with slug pellets now until they get more bushy and established otherwise they stand no chance. Lost 3 yellow heleniums and two alstroes before I learned my lesson!

Yesterday I planted a red Helenium and Multi Blue Clematis near to it. Ring fenced with blue slug bait. Later on I saw a black slug eating a dead white one... ugh! I went by the same spot and there was one dead black one. Gave that a decent burial in the dustbin....toxic or what?

I'm don't like to use pellets, don't know what else I may be poisoning:-( Black birds and hedgehogs and toads etc eat our little 'friends'......and anyway......I think they have cute faces;-) I have to think of another way to protect them and to be honest I haven't had too much of a problem with them this year apart from heleniums. I had a lovely picture in my mind...heleniums and verbena bonariensis, backed by a new aucuba picturata. Helenium sahins early with a. picturata was a combination I saw at Fourseasons garden in Walsall and fell in love...I thought the verbena would add the final touch. Ah the best laid plans:-))))

So didnt it happen? Never mind BA, tuck it away for next year.
I agree about slug pellets and I do use them VERY sparingly, but occasionally a plant gets a real bashing so its a last resort. I have a pair of dunnocks who hop in and out of the hedge..and some blackbirds..I keep an eye to see if there are any peck marks or if a dead slug is no longer there. They seem to leave them alone and I always dispose of the bodies.

I recently planted 3 ferns and they made a slugline to just one. The others are flourishing, so this one Ive protected and collected 5 dead slugs so far. The fern is nearly big enough to take care of itself now, so I wont be using more pellets on it.

I nearly lost a yellow Helenium, got at by slugs, as I deliberately did not use slug bait. It is recuperating, hopefully to be replanted later. My container of slug bait has lasted for a long time. I use as few garden chemicals as I can. I grow apples and pears and only use sticky bands.....I think I stick to them more than do the pests!! Dead slugs and snails are picked up with a gripper. The Helenium I planted was 2-3 foot tall so not vulnerable, but the snails crawl up and eat new clematis shoots yum yum.

I gave up on yellow Helenium..my last one struggled valiantly, but eventually lost the battle. Im also getting a glut of earwigs this year..eating my rose leaves and petals..oh dear..this year started off so well, but suddenly I have a bugfest!

I take it neither of you agree they have cute faces? Ah well... I wondered what had been at my rose leaves...small holes everywhere, could this be earwigs? I've looked carefully, but found nothing:-)

Guinea pigs have cute faces too, but they dont eat my plants BA!! You may have leaf cutter bees

Wow! what do they look like? I've got millions of hoverflies this year...never seen so many. I love the way they hover right in front of your face for ages, then shoot off as though horrified by what they've seen:-))

Say no more.....

:-)

Now I was only joking BA..just surprised they were so discerning!