Dancing and Romancing the Garden Snail
by Ann Barklow

I never really gave it that much thought before, but I spend a lot of time thinking about, talking about, and exterminating snails. Most gardeners do.

There are the mornings I hand pick snails and recycle them as pate’ into the soil. Then there are the covers and copper barriers I surround new seedlings with. I also check the many traps strategically placed in gardens that I care for, to attract snails for their easy capture and demise, such as large magnolia leaves and slightly elevated boards. There is the refilling of the beer baits, the releasing of more decollate snails that eat the brown garden snails, and the knowledge I have in my brain on what plants snails like to live in and which ones they like to eat, so I can keep those plant varieties to a minimum in my gardens. There is also the certain knowledge that one of the first questions I will be asked at garden events and social gatherings is probably going to be about snails.

Furthermore, I have way too much information on the life of snails. Like the first fossil land snails date back to some 350 million years ago. Or that snails mucus serves as a repellent against some predators and helps in locomotion. More interesting still, is the fact that snails feed with a long tooth-studded tongue called a “radula” that it moves in a licking motion, ripping up small particles of plant matter as it pulls the material back into its mouth. Some snails actually have thousands of these microscopic teeth (that must be my snails). If that isn’t enough information, I also know that a snails courtship is very romantic. They circle and touch each other for hours and even days and as part of this romantic foreplay, they shoot love darts into each other. Yes, I found it hard to believe, too. These darts are composed of chitinous material and may be a way that a snail identifies a partner as being of the same species. It is also believed that the “love dart” acts as stimulus in the final act of reproduction.

Of course the knowledge that snails are hermaphrodites really made my day. This fact of having both male and female sex organs means they both produce eggs and sperm and once they mate they can both lay eggs. Depending on the species, the eggs can range in number from a dozen to over one hundred (that must be my snails).

I even know how to raise garden snails as pets. (No, I haven’t lost it. Like I said, I have a lot of knowledge about snails.) Pet snails are housed in a “snailarium”, which can be as simple as an old aquarium with a tightly fitted screened or aerated lid and outfitted with a layer of soil, rocks and artificial plants. You probably already guessed why you use artificial plants.

All types of food can be served to your pet snails. I bet you could come up with a dozen right off the top of your head. There isn’t a gardener alive that couldn’t tell a snail pet owner what to feed his snail. What you probably don’t know, is that an important food supplement that must be given is calcium, which is needed for shell growth and hardness. This can be administered in the form of calcium tablets found in grocery stores or you can make your own with cleaned shells of the snails’ deceased relatives. They don‘t even need to be broken up, since the snails will gnaw on them with their toothy tongues (radulas, for those who are paying attention). These pets are NOT for consumption - so don't eat them!

If you don’t want to raise garden snails, then you probably fall into the category of wanting to kill them. More than likely you have raised more snails in your garden than you could ever possibly want to, unintentionally. The snail you have been raising is known as the Brown Garden Snail (Helix aspera) and orginally hails from Europe.

Besides the methods I mentioned earlier to rid your garden of the Brown Garden Snail there is more hope on the horizon. It is a non-toxic product made with iron phosphate. The one I use is called Sluggo® and is available at most local nurseries. There are also a similar products such as Worry-Free® or Esgargot®. The active ingredient, iron phosphate, is mixed with additives that lure snails to eat it. Once they ingest even a small amount, it will cause them to cease feeding. This physiological effect of the bait gives immediate protection to the plants even though the slugs and snails remain in the area. The snails become less mobile and begin to expire within three to six days, often crawling away to secluded places to die.