Why we should welcome slugs to our gardens

THEY will happily chomp their way through your carefully planted vegetables, leaving a trail of destruction.

But Springwatch presenter Chris Packham has made the case for slugs, saying gardeners should lay off killing them because they attract other wildlife.

The naturalist said we should empathise with the slimy creatures that cannot resist the ‘free banquet’ a thriving garden offers them.

He told the Radio Times: ‘The slug’s been offered a free banquet. You have to expect it to eat it. If you’re planting a row of lettuce, you’re planting a free supermarket for molluscs.

‘If you turned up at Sainsbury’s and they said, “And everything today is free,” you’d fill your basket, wouldn’t you?’

The 56-year-old said gardeners were also harming hedgehogs and song thrushes by clamping down on slugs.

He said: ‘If you make draconian choices like “I don’t want slugs to eat my plants”, then you’re doing yourself out of hedgehogs, slow worms and song thrushes and that’s a tragic loss to the garden.’

The star’s latest show, The British Garden: Life And Death On Your Lawn, airs on BBC4 next Tuesday.