Can This Popular Toilet Paper Solution Keep Gross Slugs Off Plants?

Ugh, slugs. These slimy, gross critters are the bane of many gardeners' existence. Their expansive menu of plants for consumption includes your precious seedlings — and their voracious appetite can weaken or kill your plants. Gardeners are always looking for ways to control the destructive creatures, and you'll find many hacks out there. One of them suggests you can use empty toilet paper rolls as plant collars to form a barrier that keeps slugs out. You may wonder if this is just another popular garden myth for deterring slugs that can't be trusted (like using citrus fruit). The answer is a bit anticlimactic; the hack works sometimes, but is not a reliable, long-term method for keeping slugs from eating your plants.

The idea is that this physical barrier deters slugs, and they won't climb it. Some slugs may not be interested in climbing the collar; however, they are perfectly capable of climbing, and their mucous secretions boost their climbing prowess. Thus, the collars may not be much of a deterrent. They also won't deter slugs living in the soil and accessing your plants from below. Slugs not already in the soil will even burrow underground to get at your plants.

The fact that the toilet paper rolls will decompose quickly is both bad news and good news. The ideal scenario is for them to disappear after the plant is bigger and stronger, and it's nice that you don't have to harvest old TP rolls from your garden. However, the rolls decompose even faster in wet and humid conditions, and since slugs seek wet conditions, they could be attracted to your decomposing toilet paper rolls at the time you need them most as a barrier.

Despite the downsides, some gardeners swear by toilet paper roll plant collars to keep slugs from eating seedlings in particular, and it costs you virtually nothing to try this method to see if works for you (assuming you have a steady supply of toilet paper rolls). Most DIYers using this method cut the toilet paper rolls in half and carefully slip them onto a seedling, pushing the roll about an inch into the soil. Press some soil firmly around it to secure it. To keep from damaging the plant as you're slipping on the collar, another option is to make a vertical cut in your half toilet paper roll so you can wrap the roll around the plant stem instead of placing it over the top of the plant. 

Some gardeners have also had success adding copper tape to plant collars, which could deter them from climbing the plant collar. However, the overlooked mistake that makes copper tape less effective at repelling slugs — using tape that's not wide enough — suggests that toilet paper rolls would not be the best vehicle for the tape because they would not allow for a wide enough piece of tape. The collar approach might not do the job for you, but you can still upcycle toilet paper rolls around your garden with effortless DIYs.