16 ways gardeners can live alongside slugs and snails
Ideas for reducing nibbles to leaves or simply caring less
I’ve always felt sorry for slugs and snails, they move around slowly, minding their own business. Gently nibbling plants peacefully. And then along we come to spoil their day. Well, a few years ago I said to myself ‘no more’ they stay and I’ll find new ways to live alongside them. Below I’ve shared what these are...
1) Don’t worry about nibbles on ornamentals
My first step was to care less about plants looking perfect. In the grand scheme of a garden, no matter how small, it really doesn’t matter if a leaf has some holes in. Stand back and look at the wider picture, and it will look as beautiful as ever.
2) Observe which plants are nibbled and which aren’t
Grow more of those that aren’t damaged as much and less of the plants that suffer the most. I know it’s tempting to grow the plants we like the look of in magazines and other people’s gardens but remember, there are tens of thousands of plants out there, there is always an alternative with the same or a similar colour and shape.
3) Don’t panic early in the season
In spring, when soil is still damp, you can imagine nothing surviving slug and snail damage as you watch emerging shoots being eaten. As summer rolls on with hotter drier weather however, the balance will tip as slugs and snails retreat to damper shaded corners and plants have a chance to grow big, tall and more resistant to nibbling. Our dahlias for instance, which I always leave in the ground, have their shoots eaten at first, but more make it through later in summer.
4) Grow vulnerable crops in the open
Slugs and snails don’t like being out in the open, it makes them vulnerable to being spotted by birds and they know it. I grow our most vulnerable crops - leafy veg like lettuce, chard and kale - in my most open area of my plot. It also means there is some bare soil that in summer when dry is less fun for slugs and snails to slide across. By open I mean in the middle of the veg plot with at least 1 - 3 metres all the way around that doesn’t have anything growing above 20cm. In my case, this is a path all the way around the salad bed. Over the last 10 years, in London and in wetter Yorkshire, this has worked without fail. Slugs and snails will be reluctant to choose the exposed plants over more shaded plants and any that do will almost certainly be picked off by small birds.
5) Keep vulnerable crops away from shade
This is almost the same point as the last one, but to hammer it home: shady spots, such as under shrubs, dense covers of perennials, near compost bins, fences, raised bed edges, walls etc are all ideal slug and snail habitat. Only plant resistant plants in these spots, anything more vulnerable move further away.
6) Start vulnerable plants off on benches
I sow a lot of vegetables and flowers directly in the soil, but early on in spring I do start some off in peat free compost on shelves or benches, growing them onto a strong size (6 - 8 leaves). Raising pots off the ground like this helps reduce the number of slugs and snails that can reach them while they are particularly small plants. Some still climb up but you can move them down easily.
7) Don’t use pesticides
Quite often people end up in a downward spiral with slugs and snails because they fight against them reducing their numbers. This means there are less slugs and snails for birds and other predators to eat, so they move elsewhere. The next year, the slugs and snails have a free reign on your plot without natural control of predators. Stop trying to control slugs and snails and predatory wildlife will come back, naturally keeping numbers under control.
8) Relax about wetter years
2023 was an incredibly wet summer for us and as a result the slug and snail population was more active. Rather than stress about this, I admitted to myself that there is little I can do and just put up with slightly more nibbling than normal, knowing the next year will probably be better.
9) Create ideal slug and snail habitat to attract them
Yes, I encourage slugs and snails into areas of our garden. Why? Because if I create ideal spots for them, they are more likely to stay there than venture into the less appealing areas where I am growing veg and flowers. Having some dense shade areas with some sacrificial plants that are eaten but keep growing, helps keep them there, at least in the day time.
10) Enlist slugs and snails to help you
Compost heaps are top of the pile for slug and snail habitat, not least because they will help the heap of plant material become rich, useful compost. People often ask me what the point of slugs and snails is, one of the answers? To break down waste plant material and turn it into valuable homemade compost. Some slugs and snails eat fresh leaves put on the heap, herbivorous, others eat dead materials and other detritus, these are called detritivores. Some slugs and snails are even carnivorous, eating dead flesh and insects. Many are a mix, omnivores that can eat anything! Either way, it all ends up as snail poo to be recycled into the soil.
11) Help slugs and snails into your garden ecosystem
Cutting and chucking waste plant material onto the ground alongside fallen leaves will encourage slugs and snails to stay beneath this layer of dead and dying plant material where it’s damp and shady. The slugs and snails will rollick and blackbirds, frogs and toads will rummage to eat them. By helping break down the plant debris, the slugs and snails are playing their pivotal role in turning dead material into nutrients to feed the soil and your plants. I’ve also observed that with a layer like this, the slugs and snails tend to eat the older lower leaves of living plants, rather than venturing up to the exposed newer shoots.
12) Grow more plants
If you’re like me, this tip is music to our gardener ears! Grow more and more plants. The more plants we grow in our gardens, the more plant material there is and the less visible nibbles on leaves will be. Similar to the last point, in a dense planting, the slugs and snails will tend to stay out-of-sight lower down. In our old London garden, I found that the more plants I stuffed in, the less noticeable the slug and snail damage.
13) Encourage more bugs
Many creatures like ground beetles, centipedes, ants, millipedes, earwigs and wasps are predators of slugs and snails. Do not fear or try to remove or kill them, encourage them in! To encourage them, you need to have some slugs and snails for them to feed on in the first place. Hold your nerve and eventually the ecosystem will balance out.
14) Admit you have a shady garden
In our old London garden, we had half the city’s population of slugs and snails. There were loads and they would eat many plants. In the end, I started to admit that the plants most likely to be eaten were the sun loving plants I was trying to grow in a garden that was actually part-shade. When I started concentrating on the shade loving plants, the damage went down. Why? Because the plants grew more strongly because they were in the right environment.
15) Enlist a song thrush
Song thrushes are fairly rare in the UK these days, but you can help encourage them into your garden with a healthy population of, you guessed it, snails. They’re incredible snail hunters, picking them up and cracking the shells against rocks to get to the snail inside.
16) Appreciate slug and snail beauty
Spend some time getting to know your slugs and snails better. Snails in particular I love to bits, with their cute little antennae, gentle, slow movement and often beautifully patterned shells. Why do we like flowers and not these wondrous shells? Why do we like seashells and not snail shells in our own garden? I think it’s time to get over their sliminess and get to know them better.
I’ve written this article to support the Wildlife Trusts and RHS Making Friends With Molluscs campaign. These two brilliant charities have written a lovely slug and snail guide with more information that’s well worth a read!
Have I missed any other tips for how to live happily alongside slugs and snails? Add your own in the comments below.
Great piece. I agree with everything you say, especially filling your garden with so many plants you can't see damage and reducing slug habitat around the most vulnerable veg plants. Plus, of course, no pesticides. How I long to see their sale banned to the general public. I used to work in a garden centre - so depressing though occasionally I did manage to dissuade people from purchasing them.
Have you ever seen a banana slug? These are California slugs that grow to be about 6” long and an inch wide. Truly magnificent.