Keep out pests without resorting to poison.
Ever found a collection of snails making themselves at home, chewing their way through your favourite shrub? Don’t know what to do? Let us help.
Ever wondered why you might want to keep snails out of your yard? Snail may only move a mere mile per hour but this won't stop them from destroying your garden. After all, there are twenty-four hours in a day and most gardens aren’t a mile long.
Snails eat all sorts of leaves and vegetables, even flowers. If you have a water feature, they will undoubtedly be drawn towards it, fouling the water and killing any fish inside.
So what can you do about it? Snail bait is a common solution to this problem and can be found at your average trade or gardening store. However, even if you are okay with killing the little creatures, there are problems that come with deploying the use of poison.
Snail bait is not only poisonous to snails, it can be deadly to household pets and small children. There have even been cases of animals getting poisoned after eating a snail that ate the bait.
So instead, here are some safer snail proofing alternatives:
Cut Back
Cutting back your plants will destroy the snail’s food source. This will force them to either move on or starve. Once they are gone your plants will grow back in a snail free yard.
Grow Sacrificial Plants
If you don’t want to damage the plants you have you can offer snails a plant you don’t mind them eating. Snails and slugs are known to particularly love the leaves of horseradish.
If you plant some in your garden, they will spend their time snacking on these instead of your good plants.
Crushed Oyster Shells
Pouring a layer of crushed oyster shells across your garden bed is an effective way of snail proofing your yard. The edges of the shells are razor sharp and will cut through their soft bodies. They are also high in calcium, helping to balance the pH levels of the soil.
Copper
Another more humane option is the use of copper. Slugs and snails hate the feeling of copper on their skin and will avoid crawling across it. You can buy copper tape to line your gardens with. This will keep them out without harming them.
Make sure to buy wide tape as snails can stretch over barriers that are too thin. Note that this method is not 100% effective. Roughly one in ten snails will brave the copper and make their way across.
Salt
It’s well known that salt will kill slugs and snails.
Lines of salt can sometimes be used to stop slugs in their tracks. This is an ineffective method in a garden, however, as salt can be harmful to plants, and will wash away in the rain.
Talk to a Professional
Need a hand keeping your garden pest free? If you’re living near Toowoomba, contacts us at 1 Green Thumb Gardening for a quote on services@1greenthumbgardening.com.au.
