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Snails and Slugs prevention idea?

Sheila AllderSheila Allder Posts: 22
in Problem solving
I am thinking of buying chicken wire, cutting off a piece and rolling it up like a Swiss Roll then wrapping around stems of plants etc and joining up with a cable tie , so what I end up with is a Donut shape. Does anyone think this will deter the buggers?
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Posts

  • FairygirlFairygirl west central ScotlandPosts: 46,187
    No.
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....


  • Pete.8Pete.8 Billericay, EssexPosts: 8,521
    me neither I'm afraid :(
    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • philippasmith2philippasmith2 Posts: 1,679
    It will just give them a bit of exercise - rather like one of those SAS ( slugs and snails) obstacle courses ;)
  • PosyPosy Isle of Wight.Posts: 3,212
    Not a chance.
  • Sheila AllderSheila Allder Posts: 22
    Ok Thanks everyone, back to the drawing board!
  • ButtercupdaysButtercupdays Posts: 3,997
    Encourage birds and hedgehogs to visit your garden and build mini log piles for frogs and toads and you will have more helpers on your side in the war against them.
    Or get a couple of ducks. We have wild mallard, a few of whom were born here and stay all year. (The rest come to free-load on seed in the winter!) They go through the borders looking under the leaves and are not as destructive as hens, though they can flatten small things with their big feet. Even in wet and soggy parts of my garden the hostas grow relatively unscathed with very few holes :)
  • PosyPosy Isle of Wight.Posts: 3,212
    Ducks are fantastic but not available to all. We had one move in with us one Spring day and she did magnificent work in the garden, though the pond took a battering. Unfortunately,  she left the next Spring with  a handsome drake and that was that.
  • LynLyn DevonPosts: 19,887
    I’m not so sure about the encouraging of wildlife to clear the pests,  this garden is a corner of a field nothing around it but grass, field breaks,  wildflower verges, woodland, and the garden is wild almost jungle at this time of the year.
    you cannot pick up a plant or a piece of wood without disturbing frogs and toads,  there are birds of a wide variety, we feed with all different types of bird food,  the slugs are everywhere here,  I’m giving up on dahlias as they’ve had the lot, short of slug pellets which I don’t want to do,  nothing seems to deter them. 

    Quoted from Gardening Which? 
    “There are thought to be around 200 slugs in every cubic meter of garden soil. Slugs lay around 40 eggs and snails around 60 eggs up to six times a year. They hatch as soon as the temperature is over 5C. Because they're so slimy they're relatively unpopular with predators”
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • FairygirlFairygirl west central ScotlandPosts: 46,187
    I just accept I have slugs and that's that. Like @Lyn, we have plenty of predators, but it doesn't make much of a dent. Our climate suits them, and it's just how it is. 

    Growing reasonably slug proof plants helps, as does squishing them now and again when I see them. I'm afraid I'm not going to head out every night with my torch to get them either, although that does help a little if you have the time and energy. 

    I gave up on 'so called' prevention methods many years ago. I have been known to use some slug pellets sparingly on anything that gets annihilated easily as soon as it appears, but I don't like doing it.
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....


  • LynLyn DevonPosts: 19,887
    Same Fairy. I growing more slug proof plants now,  Penstemons are a good allrounder,   Different varieties will bloom right through the year.  Easy to propagate.
    Harder leafed Salvias, Japanese Anemone,  quite a few others, can’t think now. 
    My cabbage plants are in the GH where I can use a few pellets until they’ve grown on .
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

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