My garden is a great feeding ground for snails - they even devoured a lovely clematis this summer. There are a number of frogs and toads in the garden but they can't keep up with the number of snails. I thought of putting slug pellets down but am worried that the frogs and toads might get poisoned too if they eat a dead snail which has been poisoned.
Does anyone have any advice they can give me as the Garden Centre was unable to help me.
Thoughtful gardening helps preserve wildlife !
When I was very young I kept a toad - my friend next door got me interested.
They only recognise food if they see it moving, so a dead slug or snail won't be eaten.
I could only get my toad to eat a dead worm if I tweaked it with a pencil.
Cheers,
Andy
Seriously thinking about trying harder!
'Advanced Slug Pellets' by Growing Success are the best to use. They are organic and there is no secondary killing with them, so even if the birds eat them they do them no harm. Only put about six or seven pellets around each plant. The slugs go away to die so there is no mess to clear up. There is plenty of information about the pellets on the internet and most garden centres sell them.
I stoped using slug pellets about eighteen months ago and to begin with I did see a lot of slug damage to the plants but several months later I had more Blackbirds in the garden than before and even a Thrush which I had never seen before. I also find lots of empty Snail shells now.
I was worried about putting slug pellets down in the garden because I have hedgehogs as well as frogs & toads and did not want to poison them. What I started to do was save all the shells from the eggs I use, when dried I crumbled them up and spread them around any bedding plants I planted and any plants I know snails are likely to eat. It seems to be very successful as the snails will not crawl over the sharp egg shells. I still have snails in the garden and still have my plants intact at no extra cost.
I think this has been mentioned somewhee else on the forum, if i find the discussion i'll add a link. Couple of quick points, firstly the best way to check if slug pellets are going to be harmful or not is to look at the active ingredient, if it says metaldehyde then i would recommend streering well clear as this has been linked with incidents of wildlife poisoning. There is some information about this on the PAN UK website.
The growing success pellets use ferric phosphate i believe which is reported to have minimal impact on other wildlife, see the information on the PANUK website about this and other slug and snail deterrents.
Warden Intern at Otmoor.