This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Snail town
helentoft
Posts: 24
I have a laburnum in my front garden which has always had a colony of snails clustered together on the trunk. Not being a big fan of these molluscs I have in the past knocked them off or thrown some pellets round the base to deter them but since they keep coming back and they don't eat lavender or hebe I now leave them be. Today after a little rain the tree is festooned with emails on almost every branch feasting on the remains of the leaves. Why laburnum? Is it like nicotine because they are munching on some very old tatty leaves? I wonder if there was a laburnum in my back garden if they would leave all the other plants alone.
0
Posts
Maybe that's why there are so many. They've sent messages to all their mates.
Maybe they like spam
is it like those Buddhist prayer trees?
Hi, of course snails not emails. I hate predictive text!!! Note to self read messages more carefully before submitting
Right, serious question.
Is there any evidence to show that birds DO actually eat, then die from eating slugs and snails killed by pellets, or do they avoid eating them?
I ask because I don't know that answer, I'm not saying one way or the other.
I know there is certainly a theoretical risk from secondary poisoning, but how often does it actually happen?
Like Verdun, I use pellets, very sparingly and we've lots of birds and hedghogs.
To be fair, once they've been killed by pellets, they're hardly appetising,and as Verdun also suggests, I think Mother Nature might have some inbuilt " turn off" factor in hand.
It's like tarantula venom, which "can" kill a man,but I've read there's not one single case of it actually doing so.
I'm also not convinced by "double digging" . I've seen no proper , "double blind" comparison studies on that either.
Double digging will never happen in my garden. I'd either hit solid clay, or solid rock.
Single digging and lots and lots of compost here.