What you will see
Chewed holes in leaves and young shoots, at night and especially in damp conditions.
How to protect
- Prevention
- Water in the morning, not in the evening.
- In winter turn over the soil and remove fallen leaves — birds will pick out the eggs.
- Encourage natural enemies (birds, toads, hedgehogs, ground beetles).
- By hand evening, spring to fallCollect slugs and snails in the evening by torchlight on a warm, damp night; traps made of hollowed-out citrus peel or small containers of beer sunk into the soil — empty them in the morning.
- Biological spring to early fallPhasmarhabditis hermaphrodita nematodes (they work on slugs, hardly on snails); apply to moist soil at 5–68 °F.
