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Ridding Your Garden of Slugs and Snails

A landscape designer shares his nontoxic solution for a most destructive pest

Gary Junken

Snails and their no-shelled cousins, slugs, are a common problem in many gardens. Sometimes they’re imported with new plants; once introduced to the terrain, they are hard to eliminate. Getting rid of them without using poisons has been a quest for landscape designer and “old rose” collector Andrew Schulman for years. His solution, known to some gardeners, may come as a surprise.

Here are some of the key points from this video:

  • Iris, daylily, and delphinium are just a few of the plants that  slugs and snails like to snack on.
  • Look for ragged chew holes to identify slug and snail damage.
  • You may also notice a slimy residue from them.
  • Slugs and nails are nocturnal and do most of their feeding at night.
  • You can use nontoxic deterrents that rely on iron as their main ingredient.
  • A simpler home remedy is filling a shallow dish with beer.

 

 

Previous: How to Control the Beetles That Damage the Garden Next: What Made My Good Plant Go Bad?
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