At midnight I was in the greenhouse, with a torch, searching for whatever was chomping on my strawberry plants, petunias, fuchsias and several of the herbs. After rearing them from tiny plug plants and carefully placing them in prime positions under glass, I wasn't ready to let them be gobbled up by slimy predators. And I found him! A ruddy big snail, balanced on a new shoot of the strawberry plant. I picked him off and disposed of him - no details about that. Let's just say he won't be creating havoc amongst my plants ever again. I searched the greenhouse but found no others; now I wait to see if there are any more plant-eaters.
Stock photo
(continued . . )
Yes, there was more damage on the following day; all 5 Fuchsias have now been eaten; the strawberry plant has lost more young leaves and another herb has been destroyed. It's WAR!
So I've re-planted the remaining Strawberry in the large GroBag alongside the two Tomato plants and stood the other plants on sharp grit in a deep tray. After 3 more torchlight forays, I've only found one more snail and that was on the floor of the greenhouse. Now removed and disposed of - and no more chomping of my plants. Happily, the Strawberry seems to be doing well in the GroBag, being fed weekly on Tomato feed.
In the kitchen window I now have 5 more Jumbo plugs - Pelargoniums - and a Clematis (The President), which is described as a 'rampant climber' that will have large, deep purple flowers. The Pelargoniums are a further part delivery from my order, while the Clematis was a lovely surprise present, given by my daughter-in-law. As it is such a rampant climber, I intend planting it in the front garden directly alongside my neighbour's huge, dark (and ugly!) conifer tree which overhangs my garden by quite a lot, in the hope that the Clematis will scramble up and over it and make it a thing of beauty.
Apologies for the lack of photos - I'll be so glad to get out and about again when it's safe to do so.
Nothing more depressing than having perfectly good plants eaten. I'm afraid I do use slug pellets now.
ReplyDeleteI had The President in one of my gardens, it is a lovely Clematis.
Slugs and snails can do so much damage to plants. You will have to keep a close eye on your greenhouse. Our new clematis has a lot of dead leaves at the base but seems to be flowering well, I hope it survives.
ReplyDeleteSuch a shame that snails are the problem, maybe pellets could be the answer to save you the midnight forage.
ReplyDeleteSnails in the garden is such bad news. I am glad that you found the culprit and hope he did not have any relatives.
ReplyDeleteI won't use pellets because of the poison getting into the food chain. I regularly have a hedgehog visit the garden and every year there's an influx of frogs from next-door neighbour's pond. I'd rather the pests were eaten by the friendly visitors than spread poison around. Also Benji constantly hoovers up anything he can find in the hope that it might be tasty!
ReplyDeleteI don’t have slugs in the back garden, possibly thanks to a hedgehog that passes through every now and then. But the front garden is a different matter, no slugs, but loads of snails! Thankfully, they don’t go a bundle on most of my plants, but I have to watch any annuals like a hawk!
ReplyDeleteIsn't it strange how in one year the slugs and snails are everywhere, then almost disappear another year? I hope your hedgehog continues his nightly culling of the little pests.
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