Its WAR!

In Novemeber, during a spectacular session of retail therapy at Target I brought home a beautiful $12 piece of floral flare for the front porch. Coming home to a drab cement wall was not boding well for the chi and I though this little number was just what we needed.

It was dark when I got home. I put the plant on the cement wall just outside our door while I took all the rest, of my probably unnessesary (you know how that $1 ailse can suck you in) purchases, inside. I came back out and saw there was a tag sticking out of the side of the plastic pot which was totally unsightly. Thinking the pot would be more substantial than it was, I tugged hard on the tag to break it off. Being that the pot turned out to be very flimsy plastic and I am SO strong, the backlash force as the tag broke free sent the pot over the cement wall falling 5 ft to the grass below. OOOPS! Looking down on it from above all I could see was dirt everywhere, plant parts in dissaray, and the stupid plastic pot sitting on top of it all. 

In my training induced brain retardation it had taken me a good 20 minutes to pick out just that plant from all its friends in the garden center. I had picked it because it had the biggest and brightest red flower in the center of the pot. And that was now at the bottom of a big ol mess. I ran down there, and in the dark, scooped up the dirt and shoved the plant parts back in the pot. The next morning when I could see my hurried handywork, I realized that I hadn't done that bad a job at repotting the plant....but that beautiful big red flower in the center......was broken off where the stem met the plant. I vowed that this poor plant had had enough trama in its short stay at my house and I would do whatever I needed to help it flourish.

With regular grooming and lots of water it has done just that.....thus becoming a healthy plant beacon in our front yard. Which has attracted EVERY snail in the Long Beach area. They have taken up residence in my plant, feasting on it at will. Every morning I will check underneath all those pretty flowers and find at least six! At first I was nice to them, simply taking them out and dropping them the five feet to the grass below. I naively thought it would take them a long time to make their way back to the pot. HA! The next morning they would be back! Little poopers! Now I throw them into the yard next door. And one bounced off the neighbor's steps and bounced into the street. Maybe that will teach the darn gastropods to invade my plant.

I think I felt bad for the snails at first because I thought they did something good. If they had at least ONE redeeming quality, I still may. But no. I read up on them and they are just slimey, eat plants, and destroy gardens. 

If there are a few casulaties of war as I throw them FAR away from my plants....well, it happens. Anyone have any other good strategies for ridding plants of snails....that aren't poisonous chemicals? Do tell green thumbs out there.