The first time I ever tried to get rid of snails, well, I was young and idealistic and didn't want to cause pain to any creature, so I gathered them up in a garbage bag and took it to a local park at night. I set the bag down on the grass, opened it a bit and took off. However, one backward look gave me a horrifying sight: a homeless lady was eagerly going to retreive the bag, perhaps hoping for a nice dinner.

One of the low-growing Sedums/stonecrops might be good for this purpose. It is fairly slug-resistant. Many types will be fine in your clay soil fill, and many will do well in afternoon sun. Gold Moss sedum (Sedum acre "Aureum") might work well for you as it is very low-growing and will tolerate moderate foot traffic and full sun. Likes a dry soil, and likely will be evergreen for you in Zone 7. We have Wild stonecrop (Sedum ternatum), which is a U.S. native in our rocky areas, but this stonecrop does better with some shade. Some sedums can get slippery if stepped on directly if they are tall/long, so if you go with a sedum, be sure that it's a very compact, low-growing one that will not send out long shoots over the pavers. See the link below for a fabulous sedum/stonecrop general website that has photos of many, many varieties of sedum. It's the one plant I can think of right now that is slug-resistant, tolerates afternoon sun and clay soil, is low-growing, foot-traffic tolerant, and disease and pest resistant. You wouldn't have to water it excessively so that's always a plus too. Here is a link that might be useful: Sedum Photo gallery

Hi Cora! Yes, a 10% ammonia solution in a spray bottle is by far the easiest to kill slugs on sight without damaging your plants or soil. (You should not use a salt shaker.) Just take any old spray bottle and put in 9 parts water, 1 part household ammonia (non-sudsing kind, if you have it). You may read about stronger solutions (more ammonia), but it is not necessary. Since you will be spraying the slugs as you see them, you will also see that a 10% solution works. Have fun! Carol

QUOTE: In addition, snails have great homing instincts, so if you fire them over the fence into your neighbour's yard, they will find their way back. That's cetainly reassuring. My thoughts on the matter: It's a good thing in historical times they did not use "carrier snails" to bring the news from the frontlines to headquarters. "Send reinforcements." ______________________________________________ QUOTE (AlmostHooked) Just a thought as you can purchase a 250 fot coil of it for around $50 and there is 3 wires in each foot, Has anyone tried this or is it hogwash? My thoughts on the matter: I'd think it nice to hire old gray-haired hippies to braid you a copper bracelet to go around the neck of all your pots, and have a couple of arm and leg bracelets made for you and Myrle to ward off arthritis. Copper is such a grand cure-all....so why not prevent slugs........and you'd be giving an old-timer some honest work. That said, I saw that Pieterje's pots had them around the necks, and saw how some really large snails (in pictures from Europe) had GIGANTIC snails stopped by copper PIPE, and so I caved and bought some of that sticky-back copper tape for my ceramic hosta pots. And some others too. Did it work, you ask? Well, who knows..it looks pretty....makes me feel like I'm really gardening now, ya know......and let's face it, we had slugs raining down on us with lots of rainy soggy weather, and they were everywhere. So I was fighting the war on too many fronts last year to know what one thing actually HELPED. The thing I believe helped the most was learning to NOT PUT THE BAIT IN THE POT WITH THE HOSTA. Duhhhh, I mean, what if it kills a slug intent on eating a WEED not a HOSTA....I mean, is there an issue of killing a GOOD slug moral issue to be resolved? You know how they say life forms have sensitivities and sensabilities, and after all a slug IS a "life form"........but I haven't removed the tape, I like it. So what if bait scattered in the moist areas and NOT in the pots is what reduced the slug problem. I'd use both option A. Copper Tape and B. Bait .....regardless.