Snail Repelling Plant Stand

Copper legs on a home-made plant stand keeps the snails off (mostly) 

I'd like to call it snail-proof, bit it isn't quite. Hungry snails find ways around these things (like climbing up parts of the plant that touch the ground), and sometimes they even climb the copper, but most of the time these plant stands work quite well for protecting potted plants from snails.

The top is a simple plywood disc or square. The legs are long nails with sleeves of copper tubing from the plumbing department of just about every hardware store. The lumber or garden department is likely to have pre-cut wooden discs as well.

I drill four pilot holes slightly smaller than the nails I'll be using using, hammer the nails in from the top, and then slide the copper tube over each nail from the bottom. To make the copper stay on, I just squeeze it tight with pliers up at the top of each leg.

Super simple, and it could be painted (but not the legs) to look better than this one.

Non-lethal controls for snails

copper barriers
Copper does discourage snails. In my garden I have some nearly snail-proof stands for potted plants. They consist of a piece of wood with long nails driven through for legs. On the protruding end of the nail-leg, I slipped a short piece of copper tubing from the hardware store. Snails will climb it in an emergency, but they generally avoid it. The arrangement has allowed only one molluscan trespasser this season.
No barrier is always effective. I have seen young snails slide happily across copper strips once or twice. Older snails flinch and try to avoid it. You still have to keep checking your plants.

Bordeaux mix
Use with care. This commercially sold compound, sold as a soil fungicide, is made from hydrated lime and copper sulphate. Snails will not cross a barrier of this when it is dry or fresh. Harms earthworms.


Home-made barriers
Salt, lime, dry wood ash, and diatomaceous earth are all somewhat effective snail barriers. Salt may damage plants by inhibiting water uptake. Too much lime will cause alkaline soil to become even more alkaline. Ash and diatomaceous earth are effective as long as they are applied to the ground in strips that are dry, deep and wide. Two to three inches deep for ash, and at least a foot wide for diatomaceous earth.

Irrigation control
Snails thrive in wet gardens. his reduces the snail food supply without reducing garden productivity. Selective watering also means less moist soil for snails to lay eggs in. Dry, semi-wild areas near a garden also harbor lizards and other predators that keep snail populations down.

Natural predators
Snails have many natural predators. Birds, lizards, toads, raccoons and opossums are among the large ones. Overwintering ants, beetles and other ground bugs eat snail eggs whenever they find them. Moral: keep a healthy garden with lots of bugs, and you'll have fewer snails.

The small, carnivorous decollate snail has been imported to California citrus orchards to kill populations of brown snails. In orchards where decollate snails have been introduced, brown snail damage was controlled within three years. The imported snails themselves have population explosions however, and do minor crop damage of their own. In most cases, resident predators are enough.

Non-lethal Ant control

Ants are an important part our gardens. They sometimes cause trouble, but mostly ants behave like good little caretakers, keeping things clean and safe for your plants, loosening and re-arranging soil, and processing vegetable matter for re-use.

But they also farm aphids and or similar sap-sucking insects, sometimes causing lethal damage even to large fruit trees.

sticky barriers
Tanglefoot is the best known brand. These products are useful for keeping aphid-farming ants out of trees. A band of sticky goop keeps ants from crossing. Products like this attract dirt and must be checked often to keep

If you use tanglefoot or a similar product to control ants in trees, make sure branches aren't touching the ground providing ant access. Also look at high branches and whatever they may be in contact with that can provide ants with a path to your tree.

home-made ant repellents
Vinegar, sprayed full-strength or partly diluted will keep ants away from an area for a surprising length of time.
Even better is Windex or a similar glass cleaning product. It leaves a smelly (to ants) residue that drives them away.

cultivation practices

Healthy plants are not easily subject to aphid and scale infestations, even when encouraged by ants.

Make sure plants are well watered and fertilized to insure resistance to aphids, scale and other ant-farmed pests.

Non-lethal Raccoon control

Raccoons are tearing up my new lawn!

Almost any gardener who has installed a new sod lawn has cursed the raccoons that return every few nights, lifting up the corners of the new grass and tossing carefully laid chunks of sod aside as they look for grubs and earthworms. Each nighttime visit leaves the new lawn in shambles, and it takes considerable time for a human gardener to repair the damage. "It's so easy to control this!" says Nancy Callahan, a friend of urban raccoons and a volunteer with the California Wildlife Care Network.

Chicken wire, or even lightweight bird netting, can be pinned down over fresh sod, she says, and the raccoons stop their digging act right away. "There really isn't much for them to eat beneath new sod, and the raccoons know that," said Callahan. It is the smell of damp earth that they are attracted to, she says. "They lift the sod just because it's easy and it smells good."

Sand pails and toy shovels

Distracting a band of curious raccoons is often as effective as setting up elaborate barriers, according to Callahan. She has a friend whose lawn was repeatedly dug up by raccoons until one night when she accidentally left out some childrens' toys. "The animals just played with the toys," she says. "The raccoons dragged some off into the garden, and they threw toys around everywhere, but then they wandered off to the next stop on their rounds." They did not tear up the new lawn that night, or any other night when toys or other diversions were left around. Since then, several of Callahan's friends have tried the technique with success.

Installing a temporary net over your lawn

If you don't want to leave toys around the backyard at night, there are plenty of other raccoon deterrents. New sod is easily protected, as noted earlier, with light chicken wire or, better, with bird netting. The bird netting is very awkward to handle at first, but it works just as well as chicken wire and it looks far better. It can be cut with scissors or garden shears, and if you attach it tightly enough you can leave it on permanently, below the reach of lawnmower blades. Most nurseries sell bird netting. The best way to attach the nets to the ground is with horseshoe shaped wire spikes called soil staples sold in hardware store nursery departments and at irrigation supply shops. Bird netting may look like a flimsy defense, but the raccoons rarely bother digging through the stuff. Too much work, when they'd rather play.

Scare them off!

There is an ingenious product called Scarecrow that combines a motion detector with a sprinkler to send a starling three-second blast of water into an area whenever raccoons, deer, or any other largish mammals approach. These devices have been around for a couple of years now, and most people find that they work very well. They cost about $75 online. Independent nurseries are just beginning to carry them.

Most nurseries sell a product called Shake Away, made from fox urine. Shake-Away gets mixed reviews from gardeners and nurserymen. "Most of the perfume products work against rabbits and squirrels, but they just don't work on raccoons" says Matt Buckmaster of Island Seed and Feed in Goleta, California. Other nursery people agree that the odor-based repellants are short-lived at best.
Don't entice them
It is particularly important to not encourage raccoons to set up housekeeping in your yard. There have been some frightening cases of children badly injured, and even blinded, after becoming infected with a microorganism in raccoon feces. The most serious injuries occurred when the animals regularly used a sandy playground for a latrine. Vigilance and good housekeeping are the keys to safety.

Raccoons love the smell of damp soil. "They will go way out of their way to investigate the source of that smell," says Callahan. "Watering your lawn late in the day is like a siren call for them." Another thing that they like is pet food. If you don't leave it out, they will busy themselves with eating snails, rats and grasshoppers instead.