They feel comfortable where they are not at the mercy of the environment without protection. In the garden, snails find a few hiding places from which they escape in the evening and go on a foraging trip. This includes bark mulch.
Snails love bark mulch
How snails live
The omnivores need a humid microclimate because they lose water and dry out in environments that are too dry. The bark chips placed in the bed provide an ideal environment for the mollusks when moisture accumulates. The wetter the floor covering, the more comfortable the unwanted garden visitors will feel. Therefore, they are more common in older mulch layers. Here the animals find ideal hiding places and opportunities to lay their eggs. The clutches hibernate between the protective pieces of bark so that the new generation can hatch next spring.
Typical species
About 90 percent of all feeding damage that occurs on vegetables and in flower beds comes from the Spanish slug. She has few natural enemies because she secretes large amounts of mucus. Externally, it hardly differs from the native red slug. The tiger slug is one of the useful slugs because it eats snail eggs.
Prevent
A snail clutch can contain more than a hundred eggs. In order to prevent further spread, preventive measures are particularly important. These procedures are recommended for mulched areas to create a slug-unfriendly environment.
loosen soil
To kill egg clutches and make the habitat unattractive for snails, you should regularly rearrange the mulch layer. This measure is particularly effective for controlling mollusks in early spring and late autumn after the first frosts. The laid eggs are destroyed by natural environmental influences.
tips
Only apply bark mulch that has been pre-dried and when there is no rain. This prevents moisture from penetrating directly into the material.
Pour right
To avoid waterlogging, you should water beds in the early morning and not in the evening. Snails are crepuscular and nocturnal, so this approach gives them suboptimal living conditions. Avoid irrigating the entire area. In general, it is better to give the plants a thorough and one-by-one watering right at the base every two to three days. So the invertebrates do not find any large moist areas.
Use alternative mulch materials
Mulch substrates made from aromatic plants such as thyme, lavender and rosemary should deter snails. However, the essential fragrances evaporate quickly and are found in lower concentrations in dried plant parts. Therefore, use variants that are less prone to waterlogging. Straw or miscanthus are good alternatives that do not ensure ideal conditions for snails.
Collect regularly
Offer the reptiles specific hiding places in the area to which they withdraw during the day. Old roof tiles, clay flowerpots or halves of orange peels are suitable. Check these hiding places every morning and remove the uninvited guests.