Each Spring the elegant red crepe flowers, with a just a splash of white for good measure, open to my awe and reverence. Seriously, I LOVE this Peony!
So this evening, I was perusing the garden (with wine, of course), and what should I find but all of the buds looking like Swiss cheese!!! Every damn bud, but ONE, with holes eaten through them! Gah!!!!
I studiously checked the plant for caterpillars, of which I found none. So my next assumption was that it was a slug!
I religiously bait for slugs several times a year with Cory's Slug Killer, even when it seems like a silly time to bait, because you have to keep on top of it. Must have been a rogue slug from the neighbor's "garden".
Sometimes, I even sell an internal organ to afford to buy Sluggo, thinking a more expensive slug killer is sometimes needed. Apparently I was not vigilant enough this year.
I grabbed my Sluggo and baited around every peony (45 at last count) and then did my full yard "slug-nuke-o-rama".
I will have to hope that they don't get my one last bud!
Fingers crossed!
I was cursing up a storm that's for sure! I always "count my buds before they bloom", so if I lose even one, I haz a sad :( I however am usually the cause of a broken bud stalks. I can't tell you how many times I have broken orchid bloom stems accidentally.
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