Snails in Florida

[Nataliwind]

I have NEVER had such a battle with snails as I am having this summer. I picked 8 off of one Mokara and 6 off another and went back and found more. I'm applying bait often but I'm still hand-picking and then doing the Mexican Hat dance on them.
Is anyone else having a snail epidemic?

I am sorry about your plants. I did not see snails in my growing area but I have some pest problems, too. Millipedes!!
They are everywhere!! They even crawl on my house walls. The problem is, they eat young Cattleya roots. I don't know how to get rid of them... never had such a problem before.
This summer is just crazy!

[angela]

As I have posted already on this Forum, we have them here in Barbados. They are extremely destructive, and multiply very very quickly. To keep them away from my garden I have to be ever vigilant. This means, that at the slightest drizzle of rain after sundown, and again before sunup, I must arm myself with a pail of bleach, gloves, and torchlight, go into the garden and pick them up before they can get into the orchid houses. I have to constantly appeal to my neighbours (who really do not care their gardens as I do) to please treat their grounds by watering with Methaldihyde (spelling?).
In another post sometime this week, someone wrote about snails, they did not say what kind of snails, but said they were crushing them. With the Giant African Snail DO NOT DO THAT. They carry thousands of eggs and crushing them just leaves the eggs there in your grass or on the ground to start the cycle again. BTW I have been told that this snail is an Hermaphrodite, so having one snail present does not mean that there will be no eggs.!!!!

[Cjcorner]

I heard awhile back not to squish them. I have a pretty good pitching arm and wing them at my neighbors back yard. lol I move my pots around and check to make sure they aren't underneath. Mainly I keep pots off the ground and keep all roots at least a few feet off the ground so the snails cannot get to them. If it's a big snail, since our neighbors house sits lower than us, those get tossed onto the neighbors roof to bake in the sun. But I never squish them...same with Cockroaches. If you stomp on them you get eggs on your shoes and take them home with you. Ugh I hate bugs, snails, spiders...but mostly bugs! lol

[panam]

Ugh I hate bugs, snails, spiders...but mostly bugs! lol

And yet you moved to Florida? Man alive! You must really love your orchids to live there for them in spite of the bugs!!

[otis226]

Lol! You guys had me going with those godzilla-sized snails. I see one or two now and then, but have never found one on my orchids yet. They seem to prefer my bonsai, and they do get squished when I find 'em, eggs or not!!
Tony

[blrnut]

They are way too HUGE! Never seen anything like them before nor do am I interested in seeing them live, especially around my orchids!!! But, yes. I too have problem with slugs and I most of the time end up doing the mexican hat dance Recently one of my friends told me that we can use common salt on them, which I did try and they died within a couple of minutes. Now, my question is how safe is the salt on orchids? Have anybody tried this out? I tried putting coffee grounds from the coffee maker, but am not sure of the impact. This year has been very bad with very low monsoon rains in Bangalore, and so do not see a lot slugs, atleast not yet. But once the rains start, I will start to see more of them. They have already eaten of atleast a couple of spikes of my oncidium hybrids

[leafmite]

Salt directly in contact with plants/plant roots can be harmful but forcing the snails and slugs to slide through the salt to get to the plant would protect the plants.
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[angela]

Salt directly in contact with plants/plant roots can be harmful but forcing the snails and slugs to slide through the salt to get to the plant would protect the plants.
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I agree with Leafmite. I offer another protective measure: If your plants are on benches with legs, tape sandpaper around each leg, the slugs and snails will not crawl over the sandpaper. I have used this and it worked well for me.

[panam]

Sandpaper! What a great idea! Thanks, Angela!
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[cdayinflorida]

Don't use salt on slugs that are on your plants. Slugs also have an aversion to copper. I've seen people rim their pots with copper foil tape bought on spools for the stained glass folks.