Garden Ants
All About How to Handle Garden Ants
Not just pesky at a picnic, garden ants may be causing you worry in your backyard. Whether they are undermining the structure of your patio or destroying the beauty of your flower bed, there are ways to combat the infestation of garden ants.
Ants are from the same family as bees and wasps, called Hymenoptera insects. They thrive across the continent and range from being black in color through to brown and at times red. Ants commonly grow to a size of 1/6 to 1/4 inch long. You might see winged ants in your yard and often you can catch sight of ant hills dotting the grass or sidewalk. Their mouths are made for chewing and they are constantly on the look out for food and things to chomp on (cellulose for their nest or home).
Ants, as well as bees and wasps, live in colonies with a structure or class system that delivers efficiency and survival. There is the infamous queen ant, which is basically just a female ant that has larvae and lays the foundation for new colonies. Often the queen ants are winged. Males are around for mating and worker ants obviously carry the weight of food collection and nest building.
The queen will produce eggs without stopping throughout the warm seasons and the entire colony will hibernate in a below ground nest during colder weather. Sometimes garden ants can still be seen in winter months scrounging through garden waste piles, collecting food and generally making you nervous. Keeping your cuttings and any other garden waste in your compost is the best way to control the access and range of such colonies.
If you see an ant population inside your tree, don’t rush to extradite it. Ants help to remove harmful fungi, rotten wood and organisms that are damaging to trees. They collect it and remove it from the tree, eventually leaving a healthier specimen. If you spot a colony working away at this, chances are they recognized a problem with your tree before you did and are in the process of rectifying it. Leave them to their job.
Contrary to what you may think, ant hills in your grass are not causing harm. Make sure that you set your mower high enough so that it doesn’t catch the hill, potentially causing damage to the mower and a mess on the grass. Then simply mow and let the ants be.
Garden ants in your flower beds may leave you more disturbed. They are often feasting on your aphid population, so taking steps to reduce the aphids will eventually force the ants elsewhere. Also applying boiling water to hills and groups of ants will kill them, although it may not discourage more from taking their place. Pour boiling water slowly and often over a few days to effectively kill the nest. You are looking to eliminate the queen ant most of all, as she holds the colony together and once she’s gone, the other ants will scatter or die off.
There is some bait that when used together with ant traps will effectively kill off the insect. Mix one part sugar with one part borax and place in traps around your flower bed. Be sure not to sprinkle borax directly onto your soil as it will harm your plants. The ants will enter the trap and collect the mixture. Once they take it back to the queen, hopefully she will partake and be eliminated. Diatomaceous earth mixed with pyrethrum is another combination that will poison the creatures and have little negative environmental effect.
Brew your own ant repellant tea from spearmint leaves, pennyroyal or tansy. Then fill a spray bottle and apply liberally to the species, the hills or directly on the plants to discourage them.
Remember that garden ants are not necessarily destructive pests, but their presence in such large numbers can be disheartening. Use some of the methods above to control them. Otherwise, enjoy the great outdoors with a common insect. Just don’t bring a picnic.