SLUG AND SNAIL RESISTANT PLANTS

A Comprehensive Five-Page List of Garden Plants That Terrestrial Mollusks Avoid

One of the best preventative strategies in managing the snail/slug garden plant devouring problem is to go with plants that snails/slugs just don’t eat.

Fortunately, there’s a long list (literally) of such plants. Enough to create or fill an entire landscape. But should one want plants not on this list in their garden, my recommendation is to plant those snail-food plants (e.g., almost all vegetables) out in the open and use plants from this list in the wetter spots, the shadier spots, spots up against the house or a fence, and the spots against the dense shrubbery, especially, that which backs up to a natural area. Essentially, the spots where the snails and/or slugs like to hide.

A few considerations here:

• This list is primarily composed of perennials, bulbs, and annuals.

• There are only a limited number of woody plants (trees, shrubs, vines) here. It’s a sampling, no more. Slugs and snails do not typically damage trees and shrubs, especially conifers and thick-leaved species.

• Most of the entries on this list are simply the genus of a group of species and that genus can represent hundreds of species, hence this list ultimately covers thousands of plants.

• A handful of large genera may have species that are susceptible and species that are resistant.

• Although snails and slugs do not partake of certain species on this list, they will regularly find a place to rest among the tight clumping foliage or beneath the low fluffy foliage of those species. The good news is that you’ll know where to check at night with flashlight in hand.

• Some of these species are little bothered (if at all) by snails and slugs in some situations but they can also have some bothersome damage in other situations. It might be a matter of a difference in the climate, the sun/shade exposure, the closeness of plant species that are pretty much snail/slug salad, or an exploded population of the mollusks.

• Some of these species have a talent that keeps them ahead of the snails and slugs — they grow pretty dang fast. But because of this speed, they can be assertive-aggressive species in some gardens as well as invasive when they escape into the nearby natural ecosystems.

• None of these species are adapted to all zones. Check each species for their USDA Zone or Sunset Western Garden Book zone qualification.

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