Whether they're leaving holes in your hostas, dining on your dahlias or snacking on your sweet peas, slugs and snails can pose a big problem for gardeners around this time of year.
While many gardeners use pellets or other slug-killing substances to eradicate these garden visitors, some are now turning away from methods like this in a bid to make their garden more nature-friendly - and it is possible to address your slug problem without resorting to killing them. If you have plenty of wildlife in your garden, such as birds, frogs and hedgehogs, they will help to take care of the issue for you.
While making your garden more wildlife-friendly may involve more work upfront, it is likely to be hugely helpful for your garden in the long run - and stop you having to head out slug-picking every day. Gardeners' World named this as the number one way to help combat slug and snail numbers in your garden, as well as helping to boost wildlife populations in the process.
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"Ultimately, the best thing you can do to control slugs in your garden is to create a healthy ecosystem," the experts advised. "Create lots of habitats for slug predators – hedges, shrubs (especially those with berries) and trees will all attract birds such as blackbirds and thrushes, which eat slugs and snails."
They added: "If you have room, a wildlife pond is a great addition to your garden – the newts, frogs and toads that use it will also devour slugs. And laying a slat down will attract slow worms, which eat a lot of slugs."
Data released by the Government this year showed that 48% of bird species have declined in numbers in the five years between 2015 and 2020, while hedgehog populations have been on the decline for decades. So this method is a win-win for both you and wildlife, as you're providing a feeding ground for these important species while they're taking care of your pest problem.
This handy advice has been hailed as a success by gardeners, with members of the Gardening UK Facebook group saying it had worked a treat for them. One person shared: "I made a hole in my gate last year for the local hedgehogs and I've had a lot less snails and slugs this year."
Someone else said: "I put feeders up around my garden to attract the birds a couple of years ago. I now get loads of them nesting in my hedge each year, and have noticed that I rarely see slugs in my garden any more."
If you're limited on space or live in a more urban area with less wildlife, there are plenty of other nature-friendly ways to help keep slugs and snails away from your plants that don't involve killing your slimy garden visitors. "Put cucumber slices down, slugs love it and will hopefully be too full on that to eat your plants," one gardener advised on Facebook.
Someone else said they had been putting a couple of large iceberg lettuces out in her garden each week for the slugs to feast on, and the method had successfully kept her plants safe for the last two years. "This system outperforms any other method I have tried so far, and most snails and slugs seem to head to it instead of my dahlias and hostas," she said.
Others have reported success using copper tape or wire, grit, or sheep's wool around the base of their plants to create a barrier that slugs and snails don't like to cross - and other spiky materials can be effective too. "I use dried, crushed eggshells. It's worked so far," one person said.
Another gardener shared: "I used chopped up dried bramble stems and make a ring of thorns. I layer it so they have a few to get through. So far none of my peas and sweet peas have been munched."
And someone else wrote: "I use coffee ground round my plants that they have munched on. Seems to be working has they have so far left them alone."
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