Monday, June 3, 2013

Snails Are Eating My Flowers

Simple steps are required to save your flowers from snail attacks.


There are many ways to remove a snail infestation to save your prized flowers. To guard against these ravenous mollusks, the best course of action is to remove snail hideouts, protect your surviving flowers, and to kill the surviving snails.








Eliminate Hiding Places


A rotten log is a preferred home for snails.


Snails prefer dark and damp areas during the day, and emerge at night. Remove any leafy compost or litter from your yard and garden. Any rotting pile of wood, plant clippings or trash can be a home for snails. You will also have fewer snails if you water in the morning hours, as the moisture will have evaporated by nightfall.








Flower Protection


To save your flowers from becoming meals for hungry snails, place barriers around the base of the plants. Copper strips, lava rocks, sandpaper and salt are all materials that snails refuse to crawl over. When installing a circle around your flowers using your preferred substance, make certain that there is nothing overlapping your barrier. If an overgrown flower's leaves lay outside the barrier, it defeats the purpose if the snail can crawl over it to your flowers.


Kill Snails


The least-toxic snail killer you can buy from the store contains iron phosphate as the main ingredient. Apply this snail killing bait for a garden, animal and human friendly management option. Snails that ingest iron phosphate stop eating and die from starvation in less than one week. This is a very effective method, as snails are drawn to the bait from their hiding places to eat it.

Tags: your flowers, save your, crawl over, flowers from, home snails, iron phosphate