In the garden this week: Gaps between paving stones, and slug wars

Mind the gap Gaps between paving get colonised by weeds, look ugly and require messy scraping out with a knife. Plug the gap with pretties and save work into the bargain. This is a good time to lever weeds out, add a little compost, and sow seeds directly. You may get quicker results with small sections of plants, stuffed in and kept watered. Consider ground-hugging Corsican mint ( Mentha requienii ), a low-growing thyme such as 'Creeping Red Thyme' or 'Creeping Lemon' , or the daisy-flowered Erigeron karvinskianus . Slug wars begin It's never too early to start protecting susceptible plants from slugs. As soon as delphiniums and hostas produce shoots and seedlings germinate, slugs are all over them. Make the year's first application of Nemaslug, a nematode watered on to the soil that feasts on slug innards. Find them at greengardener.co.uk .