Do you have holes in plant leaves and a telltale shiny trail on your plants?

Are entire marigolds skeletonized?

Sounds like land snails or slugs.

These slimy pests chew irregular-shaped holes in plant leaves, making them unsightly and completely consuming seedlings or small plants.

Soft-bodied and legless, they move by sliding on a muscular foot that secretes a slimy mucus, leaving a silvery trail.

They are typically brown or gray, and similar in structure, except snails have soft shells and slugs do not.

They have two pairs of feelers on their heads, one carrying their eyes, the other used for smelling.

While they are hermaphrodites and have both male and female sex organs, they usually require another individual to fertilize the eggs they all carry in their bodies.

Once fertilized, they can lay up to 300 eggs a year that will hatch in around 30 days and grow from one-half-inch to more than two inches in length.

They can live for several years, burrowing as deep as three feet and hibernate through winter.

Slugs and snails will begin feeding in late spring and continue through frost on living and decaying plant material.

They do prefer some plants over others. Basil, beans, cabbage, dahlia, delphinium, hosta, lettuce, marigolds, strawberries and many other vegetable plants are favorites.

They tend to avoid plants with highly scented foliage such as lavender, rosemary and sage, as well as other common annuals and perennials, such as impatiens, nasturtium, astilbe, bleeding heart, sedum, hydrangea, columbine, milkweed, creeping and woodland phlox, evening primrose and spiderwort.

Planting and growing plants that they avoid can help control their population.

They absorb water through their skin and can drink from puddles but have little protection against water loss.

During the day they will seek cool, damp locations to protect themselves from dehydration.

You typically will not see them feeding during the heat of the day.

Piles of boards, pavers, flat stones, excessive mulch and thick groundcover all encourage snails and slugs by providing shelter. By eliminating these, you can create a less hospitable environment for them.

Water your plants carefully at the base of the plant in the morning rather than evening.

There are other steps you can take to reduce their numbers.

Handpicking can be effective with small populations. Once removed from your plants, drop them into a bucket of soapy water.

You can trap them by placing boards or damp newspaper on the ground in the evening, then kill any you find hiding under them the next morning.

Another way to trap and kill them is to bury a container level with the surface of the ground and fill it with beer or a yeast mixture of one teaspoon of yeast dissolved in three ounces of warm water. The scent will attract them, and they will fall in and drown.

There are pesticide baits, but these should be used as a last resort.

Diatomaceous earth, a fine powder made from ground fossilized skeletons of ancient aquatic algae, can be used as a barrier around your plants. As they crawl through the powder, it scratches their bodies and causes them to dry out. However, it does need to be reapplied after rain.

Sprinkling them with salt will kill them almost instantly but is not recommended in your yard or garden as it can injure your plants.

Slugs and snails can be a devastating garden pest. Making your garden less appealing is the first step toward managing their population.

Embrace other visitors to your garden that feast on them, such as ground beetles, firefly larvae, toads, snakes and songbirds.

“Growing Green” is contributed by Diane Dorn, Lehigh County Extension Office Staff, and Master Gardeners. Information: Lehigh County Extension Office, 610-391-9840; Northampton County Extension Office, 610-813-6613