Slugs and snails have been causing chaos in British gardens as the weather has remained wet during the early days of summer 2024 – but there are ways to stop them
An expert has revealed three crucial methods to keep bothersome slugs and snails at bay in your garden.
Slugs, in particular, have been wreaking havoc in British gardens as the weather has stayed damp during the early summer days of 2024. Gardening legend Alan Titchmarsh refers to them as the bed bugs of the garden and confesses he tosses them over his fence to a neighbour as part of “an arrangement”.
However, not everyone is fortunate enough to have a neighbour who will accept these slugs and snails into their garden, meaning they’ll need to seek alternative solutions. Specialist Charles Dowding suggests one approach to tackle these pests is to invite other wildlife into the garden to handle them, reports the Express.
Creating a hedgehog-sized gap in your fence will allow these spiky creatures to enter your garden and clean up the slugs for you. Birds can also offer an aerial defence for your garden. Installing a bird nesting box or leaving out fruit will enable the birds to swoop down and deal with the pests.
If all else fails, another method to stop them could be to venture into the garden and gather all the slugs and snails by hand. The RHS recommends releasing them in a local park or woodland and more than 20 metres away – otherwise, the snails are likely to return to your garden.
While slug pellets are not advised as they will also eliminate a variety of other wildlife, nematodes can offer a more eco-friendly solution to manage the pests. Slug nematodes are tiny, transparent worms that feed and reproduce inside the slug, secreting bacteria that ultimately kills it. For optimal results, they should be applied six weeks prior to planting a garden.
In addition to being harmful to the environment, pellets also leave a group of slugs in the vicinity of the pellet, which are alive but immobilised.
