Slugs & snail in the greenhouse

[Lars Kurth]

Hi,

I was wondering whether others have the occasional problem with slugs and snails in the greenhouse and how you combat these? After all the greenhouse is a high humidty environment and when it is hot and dry outside it becomes somewhat of a slug magnet.

I wanted to avoid using slug clear liquid concentrate all the time, and only use it when absolutely necessary, or when weather conditions change. However, slug clear only appears to be effective for slugs that are already in the greenhouse.

We had an exceptionally dry summer, but lots of rain was on its way. So I decided to apply slug clear in the greenhouse pre-emptively to avoid any slugs doing damage in the greenhouse: assuming they would come out from the hiding places and there was not much food for them. I also put slug pellets around the greenhouse.

Well it obviously thus was not enough: two big slugs managed to get into the greenhouse (through the roof vent) and despite the slug clear, managed to do some damage before they perished:

• The single flower bud of a near flowering Masdevallia reginae was munched off as well as two new leaves: I was sooo looking forward for this one. It was only a week from flowering or so.
• The flower stalk of Rossioglossum Rawdon Jester munched
• New root tips of Renanthera monachica munched off

Obviously the slug clear had some effect, as you can see the slime trail from the window via the hanging baskets (Renanthera) to the plants on the benches.

Do you have any other and better tips?

Lars

[RosieC]

I have the same problem. The summer really has been dry so far hasn't it, and the slugs are obviously looking for the more humid enviroment.

I've found a strange solution to reduce (but not eliminate) the numbers. My compost heap get's regularly moved and is now next to the greenhouse. The compost heap is far more attractive to them than my greenhouse and they seem to congregate there. There are masses of them and strangely the masses in there has NOT increased the numbers in the greenhouse but rather decreased them.

I still have problems with the odd ones. The nice new emerging roots on a new growth on one of my Dens got munched as did the tops out of some canes on a different Den.