snails on hostas

Some people swear by copper rings round each plant, others have used sharp grit, eggshells, one person recommended a ring of oil sprayed round! I am afraid that I have decided to use small blue slug pellets, as these don't harm dogs, cats or rabbits etc. I get rid of the dead snails every morning so that the birds are not tempted to eat them, but I think that they avoid them anyway. Snails have been eating my Clematis just lately - they are a menace!

Some people recommend beer traps on the premise they die happy. Mind you it has to be the proper northern stuff with a head on not the flat southern stuff! they do find it tough to slide across coarse bark chippings also.

another way is night manouvers and pick the little blights off

ho hum!

lettuce that i recently planted has been badly damaged by snails, couple of nights ago i put a ring of salt around them and so far no snails, no damage, no salt left either tho for the dinner lol

If you mulch - don't! Thats my first suggestion. Mulching just provides them with a place to hide and hostas don't need mulching anyway.
Secondly, plant hostas in an open site, not next to a wall or fence or other dense planting, as all these places are hiding places for snails and slugs.
Thirdly, get yourself a pond! I have a lovely lot of hostas growing around an old partially filled in pond and there are so many frogs around that my hostas have never been bothered by slugs or snails!

Irish - don't put salt on your ground, it causes ex-osmosis whereby water is sucked out of your plant's roots - not good!!

I am trying copper for the first time,I have never had problems with snails on Hostas until last year and they became shredded in spite of the blue pellets which I have always used, if a little reluctantly!!!

thanks sarah, its been washed away now with the rain lol.
i picked off about 20 snails this afternoon hiding under the rims of my planters, it will be an ongoing war i think.

course gravel around the hostas works a treat.

If it's not too late to answer this one.... I have my husband save all the sawdust he makes when cutting wood (while working on the house) I store a box of it in my garage. When I notice holes in my hosta leaves, I pour a nice thick layer of sawdust in a circle around the plant. I had read a couple of years ago that the snails/slugs, hate things 'sticking' to them. Since they are slimy creatures, the saw dust sticks to them and they turn the other way. This has worked well for me. Good luck!