No you aren't alone! Slugs and snails take over the yards here especially in spring( here being Portland, OR). I stopped bothering with the "natural" solutions bc it was like trying to take out an army with a slingshot. I use sluggo (iron sulfate) it's the only thing that works that I can stay on top of. Luckily we had a super dry spring and summer so for the first time in years the slugs didnt eat all of my pole bean seedlings :) but even with that, my hostas have a few small holes as I haven't been on top of it. I only have a light green thumb though!

In the Ozarks one of the most common slugs were brown and had two black stripes, one on either side of the uppermost part of the back. I have seen that kind up to 4" long. The big ones I saw in Washington had to be longer than 5". KILL-KILL-KILL Or raise Guinea Hens or ducks and let them roam your yards and gardens. Guinea are scratchers though and can cause trauma to your hostas. Don't know about ducks. Do some ducks eat hostas? Les

I'm lucky to say I don't have a slug or snail problem in my yard. Earwigs and cutworms on the other hand... We used to have tons of the Leopard slugs around here and some of the garden slugs, but this year, even after all of the rain we had, I haven't seen hardly any in the spring and none so far this summer. I think when we had our old garage torn down and built a new one, and put in a patio, that we took away their main hiding place. Even in the previous years when we had an abundance of slugs, they didn't seem to do that much damage. The Leopards are not plant eaters, they are scavengers (thank goodness, some got to be six inches long), but those little brown garden slugs liked to chew on some of my hostas. We also have quite a few toads in our yard and this spring had a bumper crop of babies. They probably have helped in the slug control for this year too. Now if they'd work on the mosquitoes. Karen

An acacia I planted at my girlfriend's place that grew above the roof before freezing out used to get snails and wasps all over it during certain times. I figure there was an exudate or other attractant that was present seasonally, your conifer is probably a draw for similar reasons.