It seemed that I would get wave after wave of new pests. This should not have been surprising. My house and garden upset the balance that had developed in the previous forty years as the poor farm land became woods. My garden was a free lunch, a picnic spread of new delicacies. As the garden has become established, I see more variety in insect life and fewer population explosions of a single insect.
Slugs are no longer a problem, even on hosta.
I attribute this to frogs and toads. There used to be a lot of slug damage in my garden. Now I rarely see gray slugs although brown slugs are moderately abundant. Now, I have thousands of tadpoles every spring. Such a pond cannot have goldfish or koi because they will eat tadpoles.