Snails are a problem at the moment in my garden. I have had a snail problem since the start of summer, in December last year. They are still an issue towards the end of autumn here in the northern suburbs of Sydney! we have had a decent amount of rain over the past week, and I had a walk through my garden on Friday afternoon after the rain stopped. Snails have been really busy in the wet. This got me asking questions and doing a quick bit of research.

The first couple of questions I had were related to how our current weather compares to this time last year, so comparing May 2026 with May 2025. I am in proud geeky possession of a weather station, where I can look back at the weather stats from previous years. The high temperature for May 2025 was 23.5 degrees Celsius, with the low being 10 degrees. The high temperature for May 2026 has been 22.8 degrees Celsius, while the low has been 8.2 degrees Celsius. Temperature hasn’t really differed that much, apart from being slightly cooler this year. Not really anything to notice though.

From the accent that has never really faded, you would think I was a Lancastrian (from Lancashire in north-west England) that had never left home (but really left 21 years ago and came to Sydney in 2012), and was used to weeks, if not months of rain at a time! Being in Australia for so long means I get really miserable after an hour of rain, never mind day! The point here is that I thought we were having a far wetter may than last year. Turns out that is absolute rubbish! In May 2025, we had 366.1mm of rain, this May (2026) we have had 150.1mm-less than half that of last year.

I thought that we could have had ‘more’ snails this year due to what I thought was a warmer and wetter autumn. Turns out my judgement on this is completely wrong. This leads onto another question-do snails hibernate (or the snail equivalent) over winter here in Sydney?

In general the answer seems to be yes they do, but it is clearly nit the right time/temperature/too much appealing food available in the garden right now to make that worthwhile! fabulous for them, not so much for me! I hope those temperatures are cold enough soon-hopefully 9 degrees Celsius overnight will be the signal to go for a nap a few months long.

It isn’t even a question, more a statement really, but I do have plenty of spaces for snails to hide in. Having to do all my gardening in pots, there are plenty of places for snails to hide in. Pots are great for that. I can’t do anything about that as I don’t currently have a garden if I don’t have pots.

I do also need to do some cleaning up. This is a job that I hate doing when the patio is wet. It makes the sweeping up messier and more annoying to do. The worst part is that even after sweeping up, it still looks a real mess. Snails find more hiding places in an area that’s a bit messy.

In conclusion, the snails will be hanging around, unless I find them all and move them somewhere else! That is unless the birds eat them first!