Nathan’s Soliloquy: Gardening

Some of my Duranta plants started showing what I call "burn marks" on their leaves. These are black spots on the leaves, some so severe that about 50% of the area of a leaf is covered. I thought that my Durantas got some kind of plant disease. As I looked closely, one of the spots appeared to be crawling. It turned out to be a small black snail the size of a match head. I lifted the plastic pot where the Duranta was planted and found many of these small snails surrounding the pot, on the interior of the pot, and some on the leaves of the Duranta. They like to stay hidden on the underside of the leaves.

There were also several big snails, with a shell diameter of about a centimeter. The plants close to these bigger snails had more severe damage compared to those plants with only the small black snails.

I looked up ways of containing a snail infestation online and most recommend killing the snails. So I took two small bamboo sticks and used these as chopsticks, then started picking the snails off the pots and leaves and dunking these in a salt-water solution. I'm not sure I got all snails, but at least I no longer see these on the sides of the pots and underneath the leaves of the Durantas that appeared unhealthy. Will still have to check every now and then to see if some snails have evaded my initial search.

Just hope my Durantas survive the snail infestation.