The good ...
Honestly - no-one believes me when I tell them this, but it's true.
All the books tell you that slugs - and snails - are evil monsters which will eat all your plants, and that you should (depending on the age and inclination of the book you're reading) nuke them with pellets or lure them to a beery death, kill them with nematodes, put copper tape all over the place, or surround your plants with wool, hair, coffee grounds, or gritty granules.
the bad ...
None of them ever mention that there are actually slugs and snails which don't eat plants at all, or at least not the kind of living plants you are likely to want growing in your garden. Many eat fungi, algae, rotten vegetation, dried leaves, dead wood, or mould. Some are carnivores, and will even eat other slugs and snails.
Obviously there are many types of slug, but as a general rule the ones which do the damage (in UK gardens, at any rate), are the little black beggars. The big yellow ones are the good guys, so be kind to them. They help to keep your garden tidy, and they can't help being slimey.
and the ugly.
OK, I cheated with that one - you are not likely to find it in your garden. But you have to admit, it is ugly.
I don't have any photos of slugs so the ones I've used aren't mine: the top and bottom ones are from Flickr, licenced by Creative Commons, and taken by Bramblejungle and Guitarfish; the middle one is from Wikipedia, and taken by Håkan Svensson.
4 comments:
I think I'd heard that, but it's good to have it illustrated! So do you have any tips on controlling the bad slugs but not harming the big ones? I use beer traps, but only beside a plant I'm desperate to protect.
Hi Emily,
I just try to discourage them as much as possible. I don't have any plants in the ground which are too susceptible to slug damage, but I put copper tape around my pots, and sprinkle these things around any particularly precious or fragile young plants or seedlings. I've tried the shocka mats under pots too, but I don't think they are so successful - it works better if I just put any pots of plants I particularly want to protect on their own in the middle of the patio, rather than against the walls and other pots.
I don't seem to have a big slug problem though - I have more problems with snails, which seem to be able to abseil over the copper tape! I also have plenty of birds and frogs, so I think the best method of slug control is to encourage predators into the garden - not that they distinguish between good slugs and bad slugs, of course!
You optimist :-)
Wait till you get the mini snails (2 mm).
Then beer traps and copper bands and caffeine are as useless as scare crows.
Oh, I do get the mini snails, Joco - I am forever picking them out of my pots! I don't have any particularly vulnerable plants though, sunflowers excepted - every year I put those in isolation away from all my other pots, in pots with copper tape round them, and every year they are completely devoured. As I said to Emily, I think that snails can abseil.
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