How do I stop slugs eating my plants?

Slugs can't be eliminated from a garden and trying is a waste of effort. What works is protecting the specific plants that get destroyed — seedlings, hostas, salad crops — and accepting some damage elsewhere. Most established plants tolerate slug damage perfectly well.

What you'll need

• Torch for evening collection
• Nematode treatment (optional)
• Physical collars or barriers (optional)
• Gravel or sharp grit (optional)

Step by step

1. Decide which plants actually need protecting.Seedlings, hostas, lettuce, dahlias. Established shrubs and most perennials shrug off slug damage.
2. Go out after dark with a torch and collect them by hand.Unglamorous and genuinely the most effective single method. Half an hour on a damp evening removes a lot.
3. Use physical barriers around individual vulnerable plants.Plastic collars, cut-off bottles over seedlings, or a wide band of sharp grit. Barriers work; they just need to be complete.
4. Apply nematodes to beds you particularly want to protect.A biological control watered onto the soil, effective for about six weeks, harmless to pets and wildlife. Needs warm, moist soil to work.
5. Water in the morning rather than the evening.Slugs move at night in damp conditions. Dry soil surface at dusk makes the garden less hospitable.
6. Clear hiding places near vulnerable plants — but not from the whole garden.Slugs shelter under pots, boards and dense ground cover. Leave habitat elsewhere: it also shelters the predators.
7. Encourage predators — birds, frogs, hedgehogs, ground beetles.A pond, a log pile and a gap under a fence do more over time than any treatment.
8. Grow the most vulnerable things in pots raised off the ground.Sometimes avoiding the problem is easier than solving it.

Tips

• Slug pellets containing metaldehyde are banned in the UK. Ferric phosphate pellets are the legal alternative — use sparingly and follow the label, as overuse still affects soil organisms.
• Beer traps do catch slugs, but they draw them in from a wide area. If you use them, put them away from the plants you're protecting.
• Copper tape, eggshells and coffee grounds are widely recommended and the evidence for them is weak. Sharp grit in a genuinely wide band is more reliable.
• Some hosta varieties have thick, ribbed leaves that slugs largely ignore. Choosing resistant varieties is easier than defending susceptible ones.

Common mistakes

• Trying to eliminate slugs from the garden — Impossible, and unnecessary. Protecting specific plants is achievable.
• Putting beer traps next to the plants you're protecting — They attract slugs from a distance — you're drawing them towards the target.
• Narrow barriers — A thin line of grit or eggshell is easily crossed. Barriers need to be wide and complete.
• Clearing all habitat — You remove the shelter for hedgehogs, frogs and beetles that eat slugs.

Questions people ask