In Good Thyme - by Mariana Graham

A non-gardening friend mentioned that she's seen a lot of snails in her yard recently, and she wondered where they were coming from. Although she doesn't garden, she maintains a tidy suburban Oak Harbor landscape, with healthy-looking evergreen trees and shrubs and neatly trimmed rectangles of ivy rather than lawn.

The answer is easy. The common brown garden snails, Helix aspersa, find thick beds of ivy the perfect place to settle down and raise a few hundred offspring per year. It's cozy and safe under all that tough green stuff, and if they don't feel like crawling out to munch on more tender plants, they can always nibble their edible homestead.

Our mild winter, combined with the sheltering ivy bed and recent heavy rainfall, has made my friend's yard the ideal habitat for snails and their cousins, the slugs. Both mollusks can be incredibly destructive in the garden, eating 30 to 40 times their weight every day. While their preference is for tender vegetation, they'll also dine on decaying organic matter (including their dead brethren), pet food in its bowl on the back steps, and even animal feces. Escargot, anyone?

You can reduce the number of garden snails by the same methods as you would slugs. Begin by looking for and destroying their pearly caches of eggs under rocks, stacked firewood and garden debris. You can also wear gloves and go mollusk hunting at dusk, dawn, and on misty days, when snails and slugs are most active. Drown your catch in a jar of soapy water with a tight lid, or if you have a strong stomach, stomp them with your garden boots.

Another method of snail and slug reduction is installing copper barriers around your most tempting foliage, such as hostas, lettuce, ivy, and other ground covers. Barriers, sold at many nurseries, should be at least two to three inches wide to be effective. The time-tested beer trap still works. Just make sure your pie tin or other shallow pan of beer is placed slightly above the soil line to prevent beneficial insects from falling into the snail saloon. Once they get a taste of slugweiser, snails and slugs slide into the pan and die a happy death.

What of the many brands of slug baits that line the shelves of garden departments? Most of them are made from metaldehyde, a nerve poison that can kill pets and wildlife and endanger small children. If you use baits, please choose one of the newer, non-toxic ones based on an iron phosphate compound. Not only are these new products effective on snails and slugs, but they're less messy. After ingesting it, the mollusks generally crawl off into the underbrush to expire quietly, rather than sliming themselves all over the garden in slow, Technicolor death throes. The new, safer baits are marketed under the names Sluggo, EscarGo and Worry Free. Probably the most efficient method of eliminating snails and slugs is to be kind to your web-footed friends. Ducks and geese love them. Several years ago, we had pet geese that enjoyed nothing better than a good slug hunt, and hey, snails are nothing more than crunchy slugs! Of course, you get a different kind of slime with geese and ducks.

Nature has also provided another great snail and slug killer in Thamnophis ordinoides, the northwestern garter snake. Although some might dispute this statement, we on Whidbey Island are blessed with a bounty of garter snakes. These small reptiles (no more than three feet long) are slithering death to slugs and snails. Watching them swallow a slug whole is both repugnant and fascinating. Of course, garter snakes also eat creatures we gardeners would rather they not, such as frogs and earthworms, but they more than make up for this with their appetite for mollusks. I suggested to my friend with the snail infestation that she adopt one of my garden's resident snakes, but she emphatically declined. Well, you can't please everyone!
CARS AND GARDENS

Seats are still available for a bus trip to Canada's glorious Minter Gardens on Sunday, July 22. Sponsored by the Oak Harbor Senior Center but not limited to its members, this trip has something for both flower lovers and car lovers: Around 100 antique cars will be displayed throughout 11 spectacular theme gardens. Cost is $20 for members, $30 for non-members; pay your own admission and purchase your own lunch. Register with payment by July 16 at the Senior Center, 51 SE Jerome Street, Oak Harbor.

Garden questions or comments? Call 675-6611, e-mail wnt@whidbey.net. Mariana Graham is a Master Gardener and member of Garden Writers Association of America.

MASTER GARDENER CLINICS (click on picture)
Master Gardener plant clinics are being held at various Island locations throughout the summer. On the North end, bring questions and plant samples to The Greenhouse Nursery each Saturday in July from 9 a.m. to noon, Cenex on Aug. 4 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or the Navy Exchange Garden Shop June 30th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. In Central Whidbey, it's at the Coupeville Farmers Market each Saturday through the end of July from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. South end clinics include Freeland Ace Hardware from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on June 23, July 28, Aug. 25 and Sept. 22. You can also find Master Gardeners at South Whidbey Tilth on July 7, Aug. 4, and Sept. 1 from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Clinics are held at Bayview Farm and Garden June 30th, July 7, 14, 21, 28; Aug. 4, 11, 18 and 25. Clinics may be scheduled at other locations when volunteers and resource materials are available. 'Can't make it to a plant clinic? Call the Master Gardener hotline (360) 679-7327 each Monday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through the end of September.