Do you also have them en masse in your garden? Many people think it’s a dirty sight, all those snails. Forest ranger Frans Kapteijns explains why the snails in your garden can also make you happy.
According to Frans, it is important to distinguish between snails and slugs. “Slugs and snails in particular eat fresh stuff in your garden, young leaves and flowers. But shagreen snails also do this. But most snails eat rotting material and residual material, dead beetles, woodlice and spiders. Slugs are actually natural composters, soil improvers.”
The disadvantage of those fine snails is that, when the rotting leaves are gone, they simply start with the fresh ones.
Why does snail nuisance seem worse than before?
According to the forester, the fact that the nuisance from snails is becoming increasingly worse, according to many people, has to do with the lack of natural enemies in most gardens.
“We ensure that their natural enemies, such as hedgehogs, can no longer enter our garden,” Frans explains. “Fencing everything around is actually the biggest problem in our country.” We have also made the garden unattractive to other enemies of snails due to the lack of specific vegetation. “Consider, for example, magpies, jays, frogs and toads. Thrushes, for example – they love snails – need space to nest. Lots of greenery, trees and shrubs.”
A solution would therefore be to adapt your garden. “Creating more hedges, which are low plant species such as hawthorn and hornbeam, and more hedges. These are higher than hedges, so you should think of blackthorn and roses, for example.”
In his own green garden, the forester has very little snail nuisance. “Of course, snails also eat something here, but I have never had a completely devoured garden.”