Help! What's attacking my plants - cutting thru the stems but not eating them?

[iknowimcoming]

It's driving me doolally! Two climbers I had nurtured from seed for six months, severed about 3 inches from the bottom! First assumed it was slugs, then mice, but I've just noticed whatever it is has now done a new clematis, had a flower bud on it and everything! Every time it literally looks like someone has snipped the stem with secateurs- I could cry! Any ideas what it could be and/or how to stop it?

I had that with tulips, applied slug pellets and it stopped so assume it was slugs. DM said they do it for the moisture inside the stems.

Slugs. They are hooligans.

Snails do that, have lunch on the lower stem and everything above dies. I hate hate hate snails.

But nothing is eaten! Just severed

Time to buy some cheap beer and make a slug pub. It's surprisingly effective. I've used nematodes for the last few years but tried beer traps around my hostas this spring. They killed the slugs a lot faster so it was worth having to empty them everyday to stop the birds getting drunk (no idea if it's a thing but I love birds so why risk jt?).

Already got 2 beer traps in this bed this is todays

Yep. I think they snip and have a brief snack and then trundle on. I once had about 6 alliums felled by the slimy bastards.

One of them has completely eaten a young aubergine plant in my greenhouse.

Try laying a damp piece of cardboard by the plant overnight. The idea is they'll use it for shelter during the day and you can collect them and kill them with fire rehome them. Or lean a tile against the wall, upside down plant pot, etc.

I bought a 'slug spray' in Wilko, you spray it on vulnerable plants until the leaves are dripping. Tried it on my lupins, hostas and brunneras and it works a treat.

Or it could be cutworms. Just as difficult to deal with as slugs unfortunately.

I got the blue slug pellets from Homebase and they did the job.

Just a warning with slug pellets, they can still harm other wildlife so use carefully.

@Lagershandy I didn't know there was a spray, off to investigate!