So I finally figured out why I have such a terrible ant problem. The red circle I've made in the picture is dead, rotting wood that houses a very large colony. I assume I can just spray neem and they'll leave? There were about 50 snails hiding in the nooks and crannies of the trunk. I got rid of as many as possible but does anyone know if they are bad for the trunk or just the leaves when spring comes along?

I also discovered that my tree is surrounded by cement on 3 sides. The cement was covered in dirt and weeds and even had some suckers coming through the large cracks which is how I didn't notice. The cement is pretty warped by roots. I hope that this doesn't eventually kill the tree or cause plumbing problems for anyone (especially me!).

Lastly, I finally cleaned up as much of the fallen, rust infected leaves as I could. I was outside working on the old girl for about 4 hours. I dumped a bunch of grape fertilizer (stinks like sour wine) and watered deeply. Just need to put my mulch down and I'll be finished for the time being.

p.s. a wolf spider tried to attack me. Gardening is dangerous.

I seem to have a really bad snail and slug problem. Their are tons in my cordyline leaves as well. I have sluggo to prevent snails from getting on plants in the first place but does anyone know how to get rid of an established "colony"?

Hi ambermsam,
Ashes and beer.
Sprinkle the ashes around - keep the ashes dry and it will stick and dessicate the wet beasts. Lime in powder and crushed dry shells of eggs do work too .
Take a small plastic bottle, bury it halfway. Make two big openings on opposite sides, fill the bottle with beer up to the openings and place the cap back on the bottle.
The wet beats will be drown in the beer.
And the last trick is to collect them manually and dispose of them. They like to rest under wood pieces during the day. So place some wood pieces here and there and do the cleaning during the day.
If you have walkways made of concrete, use big grained table salt on the walkways. That does work great too. By rainy weather adapt and re-apply.
You can go with the chemical baits too ...
In the long run, grass does attract them ... I put barriers for them to stay (more) outside of the zone of interest for me ... They stay (more) with my neighbors since that framing... After all, they belong to the neighbors as they did breeding them ...

+1 Beer

Maybe I'll try eggshells. I know that the beer thing works well but I have little dogs and I do not trust for a second that they wouldn't get into the traps. And unfortunately I don't have any fencing that would keep them out.

Doesn't copper pipe kill snails and slugs? And maybe get a few pet birds?

Smubgung, how does one use the copper pipe to kill snails? Do we beat them? Lol...just being silly but really, how?

They don't like to cross copper.  Like vampires and running water.

Iron phosphate based bait kills snails and it turns out coffee repels and can kill them.  Caffeine pills crushed in water will have the same effect.

http://www.plantea.com/slug-baits-coffee.htm

Ah!!! So thats how copper works to repel them! Mathew, good suggestion & so interesting to learn so much here! Maybe impractical though.

Rcantor: I like the vampire analogy :-). Err, I thought it was garlic that vampires hated? Coffee grounds are easy to get. Starbucks gives it away by the bucket full (bring your own bucket). I use grounds to feed my blueberry bush.