Slugs and snails have a bad reputation. In six of the past 10 years, they have been the most complained-about garden visitor at the Royal Horticultural Society, where I lead the team advising on and researching garden animals. But it’s high time we started to better understand them and the many other garden visitors that have been branded persona non grata, and the important role they all play in planet-friendly gardening and maintaining a healthy ecosystem.
So misunderstood are slugs and snails that we don’t even know how many species there are in the UK – the last survey was completed 80 years ago – let alone what their preferred meal is. Of those species we know about, only nine of the 44 – that’s a fifth – are likely to be nibbling holes in your hosta, latching on to lettuce or burrowing into a potato.
