That's a serious problem. I love Florida and visit regularly. I hope they get these critters under control.

Beverly

Yeah,but you notice they are African snails. I lived in Florida for 47 years,and never saw one of those! Someone imported them there. Phil

They eat stucco! Could have been imported unintentionally. The same way the medfly larvae came to Caliornia way back when and it threated to destroy citrus crops. We had helicopters in low formation fly over our city spraying malathion in the middle of the night shaking the doors and windows in order to reach all those back yard fruit trees. Someone sneaks a plant or food into the country thinking..."just this one little cutting" or "just one papaya, so I have a piece of my homeland". Just a microscopic larvae sometimes is all it takes.

Phil- was this was before your time there?
"The last known Florida invasion of the giant mollusks occurred in 1966, when a boy returning to Miami from a vacation in Hawaii brought back three of them, possibly in his jacket pockets. His grandmother eventually released the snails into her garden where the population grew in seven years to 17,000 snails. The state spent $1 million and 10 years eradicating them.
Feiber said many people unfamiliar with the danger viewed the snails as cute pets."

-Babka

who has rats.. to compare to their snails.. crikey ... move if you do.. lol

ken

Yeah we saw a bunch of these around our Hotel in Uganda a few years ago. They will definitely freak out a Hosta gardener. No Hosta that I could see in the area.

Not much eats a Sansevieria, but apparently these guys do.

They were sliming their way along the railings of the veranda on which we were having breakfast. They didn't seem to be eating the stucco. Plenty of vegetation for them to consume in a rainforest ecosystem. This was in Entebbe along the shore of Lake Victoria.

Steve

Yeah Babka,we moved here in 1999,before I had ever even heard of hosta. They won't grow down in zone 10 where I lived. I lived there ,in a sub-tropical temp. We grew Crotons,and Bougainvillea,and palm trees. Phil

What about those infamous foot-long left-coast banana slugs?

HATE............SNAAAAAILS!!!! SMAAAASH!!!!

Sooo - are they edible? I like escargo. And I have heard discussed the possibility of eating some of the invasive plant species that are running rampant - if you can't beat them, eat them. (and then plant succulents in the shells?)
Jan

I would have nightmares if I saw these up close and personal. yuk I like the shells anyway

Actually, I ate garlic mustard last year. It's incredibly invasive - in my gardening life, I've dealt with nothing like it. However, it is extremely tasty.
I often wonder what invasive plants or insects can teach is about what is going on in our world.
I wonder if the slugs are edible.
Don, I don't think I'd try that on the slugs. Splatter, you know.

Ninamarie, you are right. Slugs get the machete!

Don B.

The heavy artillery! Hope it works.