Do ants eat delphinium blooms?

[aacgalhere]

I have something eating the blooms off of some of my delphinium stalks. I've seen ants crawling up the stalks and am wondering if they are the culprits. I know I have a slug problem on the ground that I need to address more aggressively (denuded marigolds and holes in my hostas), but I doubt that the slugs are climbing 5 feet off the ground to eat my pretty blue delphinium!

 

[Patsy]

I can easily believe slugs are the culprits - they climb way up into my mulberry tree and eat the fruits.

 

[aacgalhere]

Thanks Patsy. I'm going to seriously attack the slug problem using snail/slug bait AND dishes of beer. I think that the wood mulch that I purchased to conserve the moisture brought slugs with the many bags that I have scattered around every garden I own. If its not one thing, it's another....

 

[Patsy]

The slimey devils are proper annoying.

 

[Gina145]

It seems I have a lot to learn. I see the occasional slug on one of my trees (bonsai or pre-bonsai) and I always remove them when I see them, but I've never taken the problem too seriously. I didn't realise they could be so destructive. I certainly don't want them eating the fruit of my mulberry bonsai. There are so few and I want to get every one of them for myself or my family.

I believe that beer is a good way to get rid of slugs, though I've never tried it myself.

 

[Steve Denning]

A really effective way to manage slugs is to use orange halves. After you have squeezed out the juice, put the halves in the garden around the plants you are worried about and check back after dark. The slugs and snails love the oranges more than the plants and flock to them making them really easy to move somewhere else.

Beer, wine or sugar water mixed with a little flour and placed at ground level will also attract slugs away from your plants. Spraying the plants in a coffee solution will also work. I have heard that crushed egg shells, sawdust or wood shavings placed around a plant works as well, although I haven't tried that.