Slug-resistant plants II: Love-in-a-Mist and Dame's Rocket

Both Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena) and  Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) are flowers I tried after reading that they are usually left alone by slugs. Into my second summer with them I can confirm that this is true.

These flowers are touted as cottage garden favorites, and have been grown in European gardens for hundreds of years. That and the fact that they are native to Europe appealed to me. Love-in-a-Mist (in German: Jungfer im Grünen) is an annual, and Dame's Rocket (in German: Nachtviole) is usually called a biennial or short-lived perennial. In my garden, Dame's Rocket only survived one of our mild winters, but both plants have self-seeded very generously.

In fact, in the meantime I've learned that Dame's Rocket is regarded in some U.S. states as an invasive species, although in my experience, Love-in-a-Mist deserves this honor much more! I've been battling Love-in-a-Mist all spring, literally ripping out hundreds of offspring from the original 10 or so I planted from seed last year. Here it is crowding out some of my herbs. One place it didn't invade were the rows of winter onions you can see in these photos, so it must not like their company.

Love-in-a-Mist

The photos above were taken at the end of May, but you can already see the myriads of seed pods being formed.

Love-in-a-Mist seed pod

The flowers and the foliage of this plant are very delicate and lovely, and so are the seed pods for that matter. They make great vase flowers. This makes it hard to rip them out! Another observation I've made is that whereas the original variety I planted was "Miss Jekyll", which has true blue blossoms, all the self-seeded plants bloomed white and I have no more blue at all.

Love-in-a-Mist

Dame's Rocket also self-seeded, but not anywhere near as prolifically as Love-in-a-Mist, although from the one single plant (purchased in a nursery and planted the fall before) I had last summer there were at least 20 offspring - but not 200. However, the new plants this spring were not as lovely as the original pink-violet plant. The blossoms were not as showy and long-lasting, the plant had less stems, and the color was not as intense. I found a photo showing my single plant of Dame's Rocket last summer, and the second photo shows a couple of its offspring this year. I think you can tell the difference.

Dame's Rocket last year from nursery plant

Self-seeded Dame's Rocket this year

I tried digging up a few plants of Love-in-a-Mist and transplanting them or potting them for the balcony - that didn't work. They didn't survive being dug up well at all. Dame's Rocket, on the other hand, was very easy to transplant, although as was the case with all the self-seeded plants, they just weren't as attractive as the original nursery plant.

Transplanted, self-seeded Dame's Rocket

Conclusion: I will definitely continue to have both these flowers in my garden as they are slug-resistant. However, in the case of Love-in-a-Mist I'll be cutting off the seed pods before they can self-seed, and will grow it from purchased seeds again next year in order to get the lovely blue blossoms. And although self-seeded Dame's Rocket is easy to manage,  I think I'll invest in plants from the nursery again next year.

Another observation: bees and butterflies just love the Love-in-a-Mist.

Slug-resistant plants: Columbine (Aquilegia)

This post is part of my series on dealing with the slug problem. In addition to putting up barriers, I'm concentrating on growing plants that slugs avoid.

Collage of columbine currently blooming in my garden

One of my favorite flowers is columbine (Aquilegia). It has perfect timing, blooming right after the tulips and other spring bulbs have started to look seedy, and before many other summer flowers have opened. It is native to all temperate continents of the Northern Hemisphere, and was first mentioned in Germany, for example, by the famous mystic, healer, and gardener Hildegard von Bingen in the 12th century.

Columbine is easy care, self-seeding without being obnoxious, and beautiful in almost any setting. It's traditional in cottage gardens and can be found in almost every garden in Germany. I've hardly had to purchase any, since it keeps reappearing at various places in the garden, sometimes I suspect blown in from neighboring gardens. I've separated clumps and transplanted them, and I've traded with other gardeners. Right now, at the beginning of May, the garden is full of this elegant flower.

AND - slugs don't touch it. Go figure, since it looks so tender and scrumptious.

There are many varieties of Aquilegia. Its many vernacular names reflect just how widespread and anchored in garden lore this flower is. In English I found granny's bonnet, culverwort, rock bell, rock lily, and honeysuckle (Aquilegia canadensis, not to be confused with some varieties of Lonicera also called honeysuckle). We had Aquilegia in our garden where I grew up in Minnesota, and called it honeysuckle. There are sweet drops of nectar in the blossom spurs, certainly the source of this name.

In addition to the most common German name, Akelei, other names used include Elfenschuh (elf shoe), Zigeunerglocke (gypsy bell), and Narrenkappe (fool's cap).

Knowing how hardy columbine is, last year I bought an almost dead-looking plant from the bargain shelf of the garden center, and have been rewarded this spring with this beauty:

This one is low, but I have a similarly-colored variety that gets much taller and has double blossoms.

Columbine comes in colors ranging from white and pale pink to lavender and red through to dark purple. There are even some cultivars in shades of yellow, but I've never seen one. The kinds I have vary in height between about 30cm and 70cm (12 - 30 inches). The blossoms can be single or double, hanging or upright, and grow at the end of slender stems, sometimes widely spaced, sometimes in clusters.

I just love this tall, pale pink one combined with a lower, blue variety and bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis, another lovely slug-resistant flower) in a shady corner of the garden. Aquilegia grows in both shade and sun, but seems to prefer at least partial shade, judging by where it sows itself most copiously.

The tallest columbine I have is white, and truly looks bell-like. I've had to rip some of it out since it was crowding the saxifrage.

The following photos show off the various styles and colors of Aquilegia.

So if you don't have any yet in your garden, go right out and buy some of this versatile perennial. They can be planted or sowed right now.

Wild Bees, Bumble Bees, Hedgehogs - Gardeners' sustainable living project

This post is my contribution to Jan's sustainable living project over at Thanks for Today. She has a great thing going, gathering blog posts and other sources on how gardeners all over the world are trying in their own small way to make the earth a more livable place. Be sure to take a look at her project - and not *just* because there are great garden-related prizes to win.

I guess like many gardeners I, too, am trying to inflict as little damage as possible on the other inhabitants of my garden. This means not using pesticides, and trying to provide a friendly environment for creatures that have a hard time in our densely populated, highly industrialized area.

In addition to our birdhouse, which is occupied each spring by a pair of blue tits, I've tried to attract wild bees, bumble bees, and hedgehogs, but so far have only been successful with the wild bees.

Putting up "wild bee hotels" has been a "wild" success. Almost before we were finished mounting them on our garden cottage, various types of solitary wild bees started to inhabit the hotels, both of which I purchased from workshops which employ the handicapped. Up till now I think I've identified the Osmia bicornis or horned bee (rote Mauerbiene in German). There are some other larger, black species I cannot identify. Within days all the holes in the hotels were occupied and many of them sealed shut. It's a delight to watch the bees and listen to them hum, and they completely ignore us humans. These bees are important pollinators for many native plants and have trouble finding the kind of rotting wood they prefer for nesting in our well-kept parks and forests. The hotels should be mounted facing south, and protected if possible from the rain by a roof.

Of course it's also possible to construct such hotels yourself, simply by drilling holes of various sizes (3-5mm in diameter) into a piece of hardwood about 10 cm thick. You can also bundle up hollow reeds, for example from dried Miscanthus grass. The hotel on the right in the above picture also is intended to attract ladybugs, earwigs and butterflies, but I don't know yet if this will work. The bees certainly went for both hotels.

Bumble bee house: Very early each spring our garden is visited by plenty of bumble bees, and I very much wanted to also offer them a place to live. So I purchased a bumble bee house designed to meet these creatures' needs. So far no luck, though. I've tried putting it in various places, including sunken into the ground up to the opening, at the time of year when the queen bumble bees are looking for an abode. You can just see the house at the back right of this picture, under the blackberries and behind the Lenten roses. I really took the photo to show off the Lenten roses.

Hedgehog shelter: Hoping to attract hedgehogs as natural predators for my slugs and also because they are just so adorable, we built a hedgehog shelter in a quiet corner of the garden. At the base of the shelter is a wicker construction covered first with a tarp to keep it dry, and then with earth, branches and twigs.On the floor we put soft straw and dry leaves.

This was a project that even got my teenage daughter into the garden. Although the shelter is on the border to the nature preserve right outside our garden, to date no hedgehogs have taken up residence. Neighbors have told me that there were more hedgehogs in the allotment colony before the very effective fence was put up around the perimeter in order to keep out rabbits and deer. We're still hoping.