Well the weather didn't stay nice for very long, and now on day 12 the weather is raining, dull and actually quite cold. Our planned evening walk turned into a study of snails in the garden.
Love them or loathe them, snails are everywhere - some gardeners' nightmare, but I actually like snails and love the different colours that their shells can be. One of the big no-no's in my garden is NO slug pellets, so that the snails that live here have pretty much the run of the garden. I also like to encourage them because they are a good source of food for hedgehogs (although sadly I haven't seen any hogs this year).
From my exploration it seems like I have a couple of different species of snails in the garden. Check out the pics to see what I found...
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| A pair of brown-lipped snails. |
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| Common garden snail on the lilies by the pond. |
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| A brown-lipped snail chomping on some fungi on an old piece of wood. |
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| A white-lipped snail on a piece of wood by the pond. |
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| A garden snail outside my front door. |
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| A garden snail chomping on the hostas - one of their favoured plants (but don't tell my mum he was there} |
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| Garden snails are quite big - this was over 6cm long! |
- Garden snails are hermaphrodites - they both have male and female reproductive organs and can mate with themselves. Although they usual find a partner.
- A single garden snail can have 430 babies in a year.
- Snails are completely blind and can't hear either, but their sense of smell is phenomenal.
- A garden snail has over 14,000 teeth! Imagine their dentist bill!
- Some can live for 5 years, but some lucky ones can live up to 25 years!
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| Studying some of my wildlife books |
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| I do like rain and it's essential for the garden to grow, but I do hope it doesn't stay for days! |
Lovely photos - I love the variety in colours on snail shells
ReplyDeleteThank you - They are fascinating creatures :)
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