How to Get Rid of Snails?
Why would we want to get rid of snails? They don’t really cause us a lot of problems, do they? Many people would be surprised at what a snail is and what it can do to your property if left to its natural devices.
Some information about how to get rid of snails mentions them in the same breath with slugs. Slugs are known to cause significant damage to garden plants and leafy plants. They love the dark green, tender meals we provide for them. But what about snails?
Adaptable Little Fellows
For gardeners, the only significant difference between a slug and a snail is that the snail comes with a shell. Snails, like slugs, like cool, moist locations. This means that they will love hiding under leafy plants and doing their dirty work at night. You may have to plant your garden with the individual plants a bit further apart so that the slugs and snails don’t have so much hiding area. They won’t thrive when exposed to the sun and the open air.
If you can keep the branches and leaves off the ground it will be more difficult for snails to get to the leaves. Proper mulching can help – especially cedar chips and needles from pine trees. If you think a snail or two won’t cause much damage, consider this: they will congregate in choice locations and each snail can eat more than their own weight in vegetable matter during a single night.
It’s possible to get some control over a snail population using ammonia/water mix sprayed directly onto the snail or slug. You may also find some insecticides made almost exclusively from natural products. Snails and slugs are repelled by copper, so companies offer strips or bands of this metal that can be placed around each individual plant. You may be able to trap them by setting a flower pot upside down next to a plant. Snails may gather under this covering and you can pick them up during the day.
Snails are able to stretch themselves out and get through holes and cracks that other small pests won’t try. This makes it a bit more difficult to stop them with physical barriers. But if you keep your garden very clean and don’t allow dead leaves or other matter to collect you will eliminate one place for snails to collect. Some gardeners have had success sprinkling a small amount of lime around individual plants. Snails and slugs will be injured or repelled by this substance. Toads, frogs, lizards and other animals also act as natural predators to slugs and snails, so you can encourage these snail-removing machines in your garden.
If all else fails, visit your garden shop or hardware store and talk with a knowledgeable salesperson about some of the commercial-grade repellants available. Many gardeners don’t like to use these chemical-based products but they can be effective if other, less-invasive methods don’t seem to do the trick.Category: Gardening, Home & Garden