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Slugs and drought

B3B3 Posts: 27,505
in Wildlife gardening
I know snails close up and hibernate but what do slugs do if they can't burrow down far enough to access damp soil? Can they bore through concrete clay?
Do they dessicate?😈
In London. Keen but lazy.
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Posts

  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
     In my garden, certainly, there are enough places to hide without burrowing - decking, sheds, shrubs etc. Different types of slugs have different habits; some go down, others not so much. 'Spanish slugs'*  don't have much of a problem with drought; or anything else.

    *Spanish slugs don't have much to do with Spain. More accurate to call them 'British slugs'.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I was thinking they probably access the lower layers via the crevasses which form in dry clay.

    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • izzy8izzy8 Posts: 147
    Have you got Ivy in the garden.? I always find lots hiding there
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    edited August 2022
    I've been hacking ivy back to the fence. No slugs but things have been biting me.😖
    I don't grow much of interest to the bggggrs in the actual garden. If they eat something, I let them finish it off and grow something else. 
    Slug delights are on the patio where I can keep an eye on them.
    I think they're probably lurking under the geranium macs if anywhere.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    They come from the Med, @Fire. They do cross with some British slugs but they are not British themselves and were brought in accidentally,  like so many invasive species. They have no natural predators in this country.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    "the research also shows that ["Spainish"] slugs are really good at surviving drought... They can tolerate a high degree of dehydration. Apart from that, they also hide in the dampest parts of a garden when the weather gets dry, coming out at night".  


    "Like all pulmonate snails and slugs, it is a hermaphrodite and has the capacity to self-fertilize, meaning that one single slug can start an infestation".



    The so called Spainsh slug was first ID'd in Britian.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    What do Germans call German measles🤔
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Jerusalem artichokes.
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    Yes, but they come from the Mediterranean. Our scientists identified it which is quite complex, apparently,  but it's  not native.
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I’ve been digging everything out of one of the beds to replant,  (mainly to get rid of the Bl...ground elder). But as I dug up a big rooted plant, deep underneath it were a few huge big black slugs.
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

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