Taexalia

wild.life

A Snail’s Pace

I am not going to post a photo of a snail. You all know what snails looks like, especially if you own a garden and you care for it. Also - there are so many contenders for the position of snail model that I just cannot choose.

Things I have learned about snails...

They are actually quite fast.
They will not, ever, eat the plants and debris that you really wouldn't mind them eating. Instead of chomping merrily through the weed seedlings or attacking the ornamental pine things, they prefer to obliterate baby lettuce and wildflower seedlings in the blink of an eye.
They won't even eat the vegetation in the council garden waste bin when they have been flung in there attached to pruned bits of ornamental pine things, instead they zoom up the inside of the bin and hang around in gangs gathering numbers in an attempt to actually push open the bin lid and return to snail hotel.
Snails like to spend the day hiding in cool, shady damp spots. Most of all they are quite partial to ground hugging, evergreen, shrubs. Which is, in a snailshell, exactly what my garden is. Snail hotel.
They sleep in the shrubs, but they don't appear to eat them since they have been wholly unhelpful in the process of removing said shrubbery.
Apparently Blackbirds and Crows eat snails - but the Blackbirds and Crows who visit my garden seem to prefer the seeds and suet treats around the bird feeder. I can't say I blame them.
Attempting to counteract the massive resident snail population and its destructive habits without resorting to chemical warfare or killing them myself takes my mind on strange journeys. Like superglueing their shells to a stick and dangling them from the bird feeder.
These thoughts inspire a wash of guilt to run through me and a need to almost run out to the garden and carrying all the snails to the salad planter.
Almost.
Having inherited a garden almost entirely composed of random ornamental evergreen shrub things, I face the reality that growing vegetables is going to be nigh on impossible - especially if I can't or won't kill a single snail.

So I am now less precious about ripping out living plant life and creating a garden that suits us, and that is also less snail friendly. It's taking me a long time to do and I may not actually grow a vegetable in a plot until next year, but I am getting there.

Except that snails are not the only problem. Rocks, stones and gravel are also hampering my journey to veggie self-sufficiency. The boulders that I have dug out of the ground would sink an armada. And don't even get me started on the chuckies. Chuckies, by the way, appears to be a North East term... down here they call it salmon pink decorative gravel.

Pfffft.

Of course if you love salmon pink decorative gravel, please do drop by and cart some of it away. For free. Seriously. I think the previous owner hired a helicopter and just dumped several tons of it everywhere.

Garden as it look on day one

This is a view of the garden as it was when we moved in. Bark chippings, ornamental pine things a-plenty and two different colours of chuckies. Everywhere. You can see behind the ornamental pine thing there is a decorative raised bed. Of chuckies.

Destruction phase one

The rotten old shed was replaced with a spiffing new one. We love it. Well I quite like it and I am becoming familiar with the psychology of men and sheds. @ doesn't even garden, but he covets the shed. Even our neighbour, also a man, covets the shed. Apparently it really is a man thing.

You can see some ornamental pine things and ornamental evergreen things have gone. You can see a pile of boulders growing. You can empathise with the blood sweat and tears that exuded from my body, not to mention a little bit of sailor talk.

Destruction

As of today the raised chuckie bed has been dug into sacks, the green ground shrub bed thing interspered with ivy has been hacked a bit. We do not know the name of the shrub but it has become known as The Green Shrub You Can See From Space. I kid you not - this bizarre piece of gardening is the singular thing that enabled us to nosey at the property using Google Earth before we even came to view the place.

It may take a flame thrower, but that rectangle of snail heaven (so far the count is twenty and I have only trimmed one edge) is coming out. It is the singular piece of growth that has tempted me towards asking the neighbours for a bit of weed killer.

A thing I cannot do.