Slugs & snails

I know this has probably been covered lots of times but I have noticed over the last couple of days I seem to have a huge amount of slugs and snails eating all my young perennials. As I have cats and dogs are there any safe effective baits in the garden centres I can purchase?
Many thanks

 

Or Nemaslugs - do a google for them.

 

Thanks guys.. Nemaslugs; Are they only sold online? Do you know if I can purchase from a garden centre?

 

I've only seen them online. I think the very nature of them being a 'live' product means a short shelf life. When you receive them, they do say to use within a fairly short time span, hence they are prepared per order, perhaps?

 

Just ordered mine - thankyou.

 

I've a problem with those small yellow and brown striped snails. They keep climbing up the trunk of my acer tree in my front garden. I removed three dozen yesterday, two dozen this morning and about the same amount just now. They eat their way past the double sticky bands I place round the tree each year to stop the ants climbing up.
I put the snails down the nearest kerb drain, otherwise they'd only come back. I've knocked off any that I couldn't reach, with a long pole. I'll check again tomorrow. No idea from where they all come, it's just that tree they seem to be attracted to, probabably for the same reason the ants try to climb it, the "sticky stuff" around the leaf buds as they come out.

 

I think we all have plants in the garden that seem to be a slug magnet.

Mine are Day Lily (when young) and strangely, Rudbeckia Goldquelle. The latter I've had to grow in a pot and will place in the border when it starts to bloom.

 

I have an enormous problem with snails - I garden on alkaline soil, and apparently chalky areas have the worst problems because snails like all that lovely calcium to build up their shells. I visited Sissinghurst recently and marvelled at all the juicy, emerging shoots. Not one showed the tell-tale signs of feasting molluscs. It's so unfair! I've lost track of the number of lovely things in my garden which have ended up being gourmet snail food. How does Sissinghurst do it? Certainly there are no pellets, eggshells or upmarket slug-pubs on show. They do dress parts of the garden with bark, but hey! my snails just laugh at feeble obstacles like that. My snails are TOUGH. They even climb the walls of the house and snuggle up under the eves.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I've largely given up trying to control my snails. Instead, I tend grow things which they don't like. They never touch anything in the hardy geranium family, they hate aquilegias and they don't attack lavender. In fact, lots of things with scented leaves seem to be immune to their attentions, although pineapple sage is a notable exception.

 

I do the same, avoiding Delphiniums in particular.

Have you seen this thread - feel free to add to it:gnthb:

http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/slug-proof-resistant-plants-t26306.html

 

Thanks for this, Sussexgardener. I'll have a read through. It's a shame we have to garden defensively, but there it is. Someone once told me that the Romans brought garden snails to Britain as a table delicacy. If so, can't we just repatriate the damn things? We might argue about giving the Elgin Marbles back to Greece but we can sure as hell be magnanimous with Italian molluscs.

 

I have spent the last two mornings walking around the garden picking up snails ,as the ground is damp ,they are all coming out of hiding......and I know most of their hiding places.......you have to be one step ahead of the blighter's lol.
I do use a minimum of slug pellets if I find I am losing the battle.

It takes ages to tend a plant from seed to harvest...........but the little blighter's can devastate an area of plants overnight.

BE WARNED...

 

My chickens have discovered how to eat even the big tough snails, by turning them over and stabbing through the foot. One snail in the run causes chaos as they all fight over it. It gives me an incentive to check out all the hiding places and when i find a whole ruck of snails the chickens are in ectasy. We seem to be running out at present.