Slug-Attracting Plants You Might Not Want To Grow In Your Garden

Some forms of wildlife are a welcome sight in your garden, like helpful pollinators or soil-enriching worms. And then there are slugs. Slugs are beneficial to the environment too, but unfortunately, few gardeners are happy to see them since they can cause quite a bit of damage to plants. At first, that damage may just be on the surface. But eventually, slugs can impact plants' health and cause a lower fruit or vegetable yield. So what's a gardener to do? One effective technique to stop attracting slugs to your yard is to avoid growing the plants they love the most, including lettuce, strawberries, hostas, lilies, and cabbage, among others.

Slugs are essentially shell-less snails. Many different species exist, but the most common ones that pose a risk to gardens include the gray garden slug, the tawny garden slug, and the spotted garden slug. They cause harm by chewing through leaves and making holes. They usually feed at night and need moisture to survive, so moist garden beds are a slug's paradise while areas with lots of sun are less likely to see much of them. Unfortunately, that still leaves a lot of popular plants that also attract slugs. Other slug favorites to avoid growing include beans, basil, marigolds, violets, dahlias, and delphiniums. Here's why these plants pose a problem and what to plant instead.

Slugs' diets can vary, and they're not particularly choosy about what they eat — even cardboard and trash will do. But plants are a popular food source, and just one slug can eat its body weight several times over in a single night. The most attractive plants are tender and smooth enough that slugs' soft mouth parts can chew through them easily, so they're drawn to herbaceous plants rather than woody ones –  leafy greens and young seedlings in particular. A plant that provides lots of soft foliage all clustered together (like lettuce) is especially appealing. 

Plants that can be easily accessed from the ground are also more attractive to slugs, which may have trouble maneuvering on surfaces that their smooth, slimy bodies can't get a grip on. That's why they're often found eating ripening ground-level fruits like strawberries or tomatoes. If a plant often drops leaves onto the ground, all the better; decomposing plant matter is a great snack in a slug's eyes and is easy to get to.

Slugs also rely on the slime their bodies produce to move from place to place. So certain ground covers will attract them, not as a food source but as a place to lie low in the damp shade. Spotted dead nettle and ivy are two examples. If slugs have been a problem in the past, avoid growing these types of plants until you take other measures to get the problem under control. Slugs live for several years and lay about 25 eggs per cluster, so prevention is the best way to avoid a major nuisance.

In general, plants that grow in full sun in drier soil are unlikely to attract slugs since those are the opposite conditions that slugs need to thrive. Examples include tulips, daffodils, mums, yarrow, asters, and crocus. Plants with thick hairy foliage are also less vulnerable, as well as those with strong scents, such as lavender or rosemary. When it comes to edible plants, look to those with a bitter taste like endives. Choosing the right ground cover is also essential — opt for ornamental grasses that thrive in dry conditions, like switchgrass or prairie dropseed. For shady areas, consider creeping phlox or Pennsylvania sedge. Some perennials also grow well in partial shade and do not attract slugs, including catmint and evening primrose.

If the thought of giving up on fresh strawberries, basil, and lettuce in your garden is a bummer, don't fret. You don't necessarily have to stop growing these plants forever to keep slugs out of your garden. To minimize damage, set slug traps, hand-pick any that you see, and make your garden less slug-friendly overall. Prune nearby branches that are creating shade, add compost to the soil to improve drainage, and thin plants to improve air circulation. Water the base of the plants only, and do so in the morning so they're dry by the time slugs are active. Install copper slug barriers around vulnerable plants, and if possible, clean up nearby objects that slugs may hide under during the day — think loose pavers or overturned pots. Plant your slug-attracting plants on the opposite side of the garden from slug hotspots.