My Apologies to the Slugs

I must make a formal apology to all slugs in my garden project here in Barbados. As you will see the damage I suspected from slugs was indeed after closer inspection a much more damaging creature.

All of the Cannas had alot of leaf damage

But after closer inspection the undersides of the leaf (Canna "Tropicana") had pieces folded over???

Strange silk thread bound down the leaf folds.

The culprit revealed !!!! some sort of hungry caterpillar ? not sure....

even more troubling are the microscopic eggs on the leaves...are they from this creature?

The other annoyance is my Weedus horribulus... what they call here nut grass(Cyperus rotundus) its throughout the garden and in the soil deliveries as I've found out ofter watering the garden and plantings. In the first picture on the post of the canna you can see it in all its glory to the left of the canna. Very robust, and the only solution seems to be roundup at full strength with an eye dropper or small paint brush. The 2 nuts are visible in the picture above. Its near impossible and very time consuming to hand dig without breaking the very fragile tether and then leaving the nut to regrow. Trials and tribulations......

Moving Forward.....One plant at a time

The beds were defined by the raised roots of the Golden Apple tree (Spondias dulcis) and filled in behind with soil. Ive dumped 7 yards of compost/manure to raise the beds and now added more of a light compost mix to each of the planting holes.During this first stage we have received alot of rain over christmas and new years. This made for a heavy job as inches of mud clung to each shoe adding pounds of weight....not fun...

In the foreground of the pictures above I placed new soil where the new savannah grass lawn will be planted with individual plugs!!!

Booty from one of the many plant buying trips at various local nurseries

Enemy number one !!!

My secret stealth weapon on the war on slugs...to give some scale hes larger than my clenched fist !!