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How Fast do Slugs Move?
februarysgirl
Posts: 835
Slugs/snails have been doing a real number on my new raised beds to the point where many of the pretty things I bought last year won't be flowering (this morning I went out to find the stalk of my Kent Pride iris chomped halfway through 
). My plan is to plant some hostas against the back fence to lure them down there as it's a hedgehog thoroughfare. I'm also intending to go round the garden to pick them off and relocate them. Only problem at the moment is that I have to wait for the hostas to arrive meaning they don't currently have anything to keep them down there. What kind of speed do they move? I want to figure out roughly how long it'd take them to have moved out of that area. Is there anything tempting I can put there to keep them occupied until it's hedgehog time (usually after midnight)? I'm hoping that with the hawthorn tree also down there and putting up a feeding station in the same area, it'll attract more birds that'll pick the blighters off as well.
). My plan is to plant some hostas against the back fence to lure them down there as it's a hedgehog thoroughfare. I'm also intending to go round the garden to pick them off and relocate them. Only problem at the moment is that I have to wait for the hostas to arrive meaning they don't currently have anything to keep them down there. What kind of speed do they move? I want to figure out roughly how long it'd take them to have moved out of that area. Is there anything tempting I can put there to keep them occupied until it's hedgehog time (usually after midnight)? I'm hoping that with the hawthorn tree also down there and putting up a feeding station in the same area, it'll attract more birds that'll pick the blighters off as well. 0
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I can't bring myself to snip slugs but if I'm wearing my gardening boots or shoes I do stomp on them.
I also have a pair of slug scissors then I'm sure 'when they're gone they're gone'!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/06/24/snails-have-homing-instinct-will-crawl-slowly-back-motherland/
I did consider lettuce but if they ravage them as young plants, it's not going to keep them occupied for long, even if I keep sowing them. SOB's chomped on the tips of some early growth of some of my new smaller plants and just moved on to the bigger ones. I'm loathe to put hostas on the line, but with all the predators down that end of the garden I'm hoping it'll keep the population down. They'd be pretty much out of sight as well so I wouldn't constantly see the destruction and weep.
I could collect them up and take them to the spinney at the end of the road for the birds to eat, however, there does tend to be "one or two" empty cans of cheap lager tossed around in there. It's not somewhere I'm eager to frequent which is a shame. I did take a walk in there once on a sunny June morning and it was glorious but I don't know that I feel safe enough to make it a regular thing.
I can't bear to kill anything, but I do use beer traps. That's not murder, it's assisted suicide.
The result of their experiment was incredible. Snails which had been transferred from Cornwall to somewhere near London for the experiment, were nearly all heading towards the West when the experiment finished. It would take them a while to get back though
A mug half sunk into a flowerbed and filled with (cheap) beer. The slugs love the smell, lean over for a glug and fall in.
*she recommends Aldi’s pale ale !