My "HF Young" clematis is in it's second year and just bloomed beautifully within the past week. I came home from work, this evening, and found that snails are all over it, munching away! Besides going out with a flashlight at midnight and hand-picking them off, what can I do to get rid of the snails?
~Annette
Snails on Clematis!
Annette ( btw I love the spelling of your name!)
Those little buggers do love moist areas..tell you what I have done in the past..I take something shallow like a catfood tin and fill with beer and sit by the plant..those little munchers are attracted to the beer and climb in and drown and die..just toss the dead things and refill ..it's that easy...hope this helps...Jeanne
trapping any way is good, but you also need to create a sharp edge barrier to keep them from crawling over it.
crushed oyster shell, or larger sharped edged small rocks (gravel ) is good. using diatamaceous (sp) earth , make a slurry with water and pour over the gravel near the base of the plant.
if they are bad, slug bait must be put out as well to kill them. i know people that pick off at dusk or dawn by hand ...no comment.
i would address from several angles. the cans of oil or beer are unattractive and also attract rodents....gggggrrrrrrr....
in future , since you k ow you can get them, preventing with these measures is better than reacting after they are visible.
good luck!
I use Escargo aka Sluggo, and other variant brands in box stores. It is not toxic to animals.
glad you pipped in doss..you are so knowledgeable on the help available. i will remember that product in case i want to do some prevention.
Sluggo has a new one out: Sluggo Plus. It is a vast improvement over an already really good product.
i have one area that could be prone to slugs, altho i have never seen one or had stripped vines from slug damage. i think i will prevent however, by going ahead and using sluggo or sluggo plus. prevention is the key to avoiding disaster.
and this weekend am laying down 300 lbs of crushed oyster shells as a weed and pest barrier and to sift down in to the soil as an amendement. adds calcium and breaks up clay eventually as it sifts down. i may have to pick up a couple of hundred more lbs. (50 lb bag 9$ at feed store (sold as poultry grit)).
reflects light and thereby increases sun level in partial shade too, so good for shady areas where you want to maximize clem success.
an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.....
Thanks so much for the helpful advice! I did put out some beer - I had remembered my brother using that to keep slugs off of his strawberries. I'll remember the preventative measures from here on! Thanks for the advice on the Sluggo, as well - though I don't have pets, I certainly don't want to harm any of my neighbor's pets.
Thanks again to you all!