How Can I Control Slugs and Snails?

These slimy critters like to hang out where it is moist and shady. They will also attack plants in sunny beds, provided there is a place to hide out during the day, like under rocks, landscape timbers, pots or mulch. Slugs and snails tend to create through-and-through, irregular-shaped holes in leaves, not along the edges. (Most insects start feeding from the outside of a leaf and work their way in.) The surest way to identify slugs and snails is to visit your garden after dark with a flashlight. Look beneath leaves.

Coffee grounds, wood ashes, sand, crushed eggshells, and diatomaceous earth (DE) all combat slugs when sprinkled around plants—with DE being the most deadly. Another barrier option is copper tape or copper wire.

Click here to learn about other pests that may create holes in leaves.