Clippins No.6 Dusk Patrol & Dirty Tricks: Life Without Slug Pellets

Can you really keep your hostas hole-free without poisonous pellets? Yes! And it starts with knowing where the little blighters hide.

Jun 04, 2025

They come at night. They destroy your delphiniums. Terrorise your hostas. Wreak havoc among your seedlings. But you can win, without poison, pellets, or losing your mind.

Here’s how I keep the peace in my garden, using a little wit, vigilance, wild friends, and a well-timed torch. This one’s all about those sneaky, slimy visitors we gardeners love to hate: slugs and snails.

The Secret Lives of Slugs and Snails

Molluscs love the shadier, damper corners of the garden, especially under pots, tucked between paving slabs, or nestled just below the surface near walls. These gregarious gastropods are particularly fond of damp wood, like old boards restraining raised beds. Anywhere that stays dark, cool, and moist through the day is a five-star slug hotel.

They’re masters of stealth, popping out at night to nibble on hosta leaves, young seedlings, and anything tender, like uninvited wedding crashers. Damp, rainy evenings are their party time. Out they come, gliding across patios, sliming up windows, and glooping their way up plant stems.

But once you know their hidey-holes and habits, you can start playing their game, on your terms.

Outsmart the Slimers

Here’s what’s worked for me. No chemicals involved, just good old garden wit:

Lift Your Pots

Raising pots off the ground on little feet or chocks cuts off easy slug highways and improves drainage. A double win. Lift them onto a table and it’s even trickier for the blighters. Metal tables, in particular, are not to their taste.

Keep It Tidy

If you’ve got fragile plants (think lupins and delphinium shoots just poking through) clear away nearby fallen leaves and debris regularly. Slugs love cosy corners under cover to lay eggs, so less clutter means fewer invaders.

They’re especially fond of the underside of those large fleshy allium leaves, so I make a point of trimming them back, or removing the whole bulb if they’re too close to something slug-prone.

Bed & Board

If you have a slug-prone area of a border, try leaving a plank of wood amongst the plants. Come sunrise, the slugs and snails will head for the nearest cool, dark corner. In the morning, lift the board and you may well catch the culprits in bed — caught in the act like teenagers after a house party.

Night Patrol

Grab a torch (a head torch if you're feeling particularly serious about it all), pop on some gloves, and head out after dusk to scoop up any slugs and snails you spot.

Dispose of them as you see fit. My great-grandmother used to seize a snail and smash it on the paving with surprising ferocity. Mid conversation! Some gardeners really do hold grudges.

Mine go on the compost heap. Yes, they may come back, but many seem perfectly content there. It's either a slug spa or the world's slowest game of hide and seek. Either way they seem happy munching on kitchen trimmings and old lettuces.

Invite the Helpers

Encourage wildlife by offering water, shelter, and natural food sources. Hedgehogs, frogs, toads, slow worms, blackbirds, song thrushes, starlings, and ground beetles all love a juicy slug or snail. They’re the garden’s natural pest control squad.

Blackbirds and thrushes in particular like to smash snail shells and often have a favourite ‘anvil’, so I leave cobbles and paving offcuts around the garden.

Slug Deterrents

I wouldn’t rely on these alone. They are definitely worth a trying, but a combination of these and the previous tips will work best.

Barriers

Copper tape wrapped around pots, staging, and table legs, or copper rings placed around prized plants. Crushed eggshells or seashells, raw sheep’s wool, sharp grit, and coffee grounds have all been used as deterrents.

Copper, in particular, gives slugs a mild electric shock when they touch it with their slimy bodies. Not enough to harm them (I know some of your are thinking, “Oh what a shame!”), but it’s definitely enough to make them change direction, even if its to find a bridge over the copper.

Trial them for yourself and see what works in your garden. They can be hit or miss. What can work in one gardens, may be a stupendous failure in another.

Garlic Wash

You can also try a homemade garlic wash. It’s surprisingly effective and very simple to make. Crush two large garlic bulbs (yes, bulbs, not cloves) and simmer them in a litre of water for about 10–15 minutes. Strain out the solids (You can always add the softened cloves to a stew later) and let the liquid cool.

Dilute this concentrated mixture with water (about two tablespoons per litre) and use it to spray around the plants you’re hoping to protect. The smell fades quickly to us, but slugs seem to get the message loud and clear: No dinner here!

Beer traps

The proof is in the drinking. Yes, they trap slugs. But are you actually inviting even more slugs over for a garden bar bender? Not exactly my idea of pest control. But again, for some gardeners they work.

Nematodes

This bio-control has been very effective in my Kitchen Garden. Nematodes are microscopic predatory worms that occur naturally in the soil. They require a few applications throughout the season, and they’ll hunt out and kill (or at least scare off) the entrenched slugs. Unfortunately, they don’t touch snails, so the battle continues.

Why Skip the Chemicals?

Chemical warfare has no place in my garden, and frankly, I don’t think it belongs in any garden. It’s a merciless random-firing shotgun approach, and surely we 21st-century gardeners are above that kind of Victorian solution?

Of the 40-odd slug species in the UK, only around 20% actually cause serious damage to plants. The rest? They’re just minding their business, breaking down organic matter and, in some cases, preying on other slugs. Take the leopard slug, for instance. A misunderstood creature, but a real asset. It hunts other slugs, so it’s worth encouraging, not eliminating.

Tossing pellets around kills indiscriminately, including the good guys who recycle garden debris, enrich the compost heap, and keep your ecosystem ticking. These molluscs are lunch for birds, frogs, and hedgehogs. Using pellets is like throwing a poison party for your garden’s best allies. Madness.

Avoiding slug pellets and fostering a balanced ecosystem means fewer slug problems over time and a much happier, healthier garden.

So, Give It a Go. Bin the poisons (safely)

With a bit of persistence and a splash of night-time prowling, even the most slug-besieged gardener can emerge victorious, mildly damp, slightly muddy, but proud.