Are big green slugs a pest to plants or not?

[Babru]

I found seven big green slugs in my cold frame

My allotmenteer friend tells me that although they are not supposed to eat your plants, she has found them in compromising positions around decimated plants.

This website says they are not a danger Green Cellar Slug | SlugWatch

Does anyone have experience of them definitely being baddies? Live and let live is my motto where possible - but coming out to stumps where I planted out seedlings makes this difficult!

Any thoughts?

[SarrissUK]

I have both in my garden and all just as evil I think, when in the quantities I have to endure. Nematodes is my advice.

[toomanytommytoes]

I've found them in raised beds and the greenhouse, but never eating live plants, just munching on compost. The Iberian Threeband I find quite frequently actively eating vegetable crops.

[Babru]

I'm pleased to say I don't think I have any Iberians. Iberian Threeband Slug | SlugWatch

As they are apparently a particular pest in the greenhouse, this is a relief

[toomanytommytoes]

I'm pleased to say I don't think I have any Iberians. Iberian Threeband Slug | SlugWatch

As they are apparently a particular pest in the greenhouse, this is a relief

Lucky you! They are the most pesty slug in our garden, both in the greenhouse and outside.

[Babru]

What makes me question the green slugs' culinary preferences is the fact that I found a number of them in the cold frame last year, apparently living happily alongside basil and jalapeño chilli plants. No bites out of the plants at all.

Do slugs not find basil and jalapeños tasty?

I don't want to kill them if they are cheery munchers of already-dead material.

[mothhawk]

They are related to leopard slugs. Leopard slugs are brilliant, 'cos they eat fungi, decaying vegetation, and other slugs!.

I have them thriving in my daleks and they stay there quite happily. I seldom find them elsewhere in the garden.