Sandy's Garden ... Another Unwelcome Visitor

And recently, I found another one making its slow way across the carpet in the late evening as I was locking up to go to bed. The following morning, I found this on Mumsnet: “Have just moved into a new (old) house and have been noticing slug trails in the back downstairs room. What can we do to stop them? In this room there are sliding doors onto a north-facing patio and garden and there is carpet on the floor. I am wondering how they are getting in, and if us eating in here is making them more likely to come in. Can they be coming in through the sliding doors or is it more likely that they’re coming up from below?”

Well, well! So slugs also make their mysterious … and unwelcome … way into other people’s houses! So, while I think that everyone will know what slugs are, I thought I might try to learn a little bit more about these usually garden dwellers; and I learn that there are 44 species of slug in the UK, only four of which are troublesome in the garden. The bad news is that those four are the most prolific! These are the garden slug, the smallest of our nuisance slugs; the field slug, still small although slightly larger than the garden slug; the keel slug, a seldom seen burrowing specialist which spends much of its time underground attacking root crops; and the black slug, which can grow to an impressive 20cm … say, 8 inches … in length living on rotting vegetation, fungi and even the occasional long dead small animal.

But my unwelcome house guest was none of these. Consulting photographs of the different species of slugs, I came to the conclusion that it was an example of Limax flavus commonly known as the cellar slug, the yellow slug, or the tawny garden slug. It has a yellow body with grey mottling and pale blue tentacles, and is common in Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland as well as most of southern and western Europe. It has been accidentally introduced in many other parts of the world. The cellar slug can grow to a fully-extended length of between 7.5 and 10 cm … say, 3 to 4 inches in old money. My unwelcome guest had not reached more than one-half of this size and will not grow any longer, I assure you!

I learn, too, that Limax flavus is often associated with human habitation, preferring damp areas such as cellars, kitchens, and gardens. Well, I can state categorically that my utility room is not damp; that it has no decaying vegetable matter lying around the floor; and that the only plants growing there are on a windowsill, so I must assume that it was disappointed to find no food in its final foray in this world. I am still puzzled about its means of entry but it may have been trying to escape the heat of an exceptionally warm evening, for slugs hate hot weather when the sun dries them out and they dislike hard, dry soil - conditions which are good for the gardener’s precious plants since the slugs seek out cooler, moister conditions underground where they are remote from valued flowers and green vegetables.

The changing British climate is proving to be a great boon to slugs. When winters were harder, the cold, icy conditions killed off many slugs and drove the survivors deeper underground. Milder winters let them stay active on or near the surface, feeding whenever the temperature is above 5°C … say, 41°F. Of course, greater numbers of active slugs during the autumn and spring breeding seasons leads to even greater numbers come the summer. Frankly, gentle reader, we shall not be able to eliminate them from our gardens: but I do hope that they are not going to make a habit of finding routes into my home … or yours!