Red Ants (Merged)

Lotus-eater

Semolina apparently, they give them to the queen who explodes and the whole colony dies.
Can someone please confirm if this works?

tbs624

Ants apparently don't like helichrysum (curry plant) and tanacetum (tansy). Have heard that cayenne pepper or curry powder sprinkled around plants keeps ants away, and dilute oil of cloves watered onto the area

Isn't any prospective plant damage arise mainly from the fact that the ants will protect aphids?

I've heard of the semolina trick too( or polenta) - no idea if it works though.

Lotus-eater

tbs624 wrote: »

Isn't any prospective plant damage arise mainly from the fact that the ants will protect aphids?

So I mainly thought, although just now I found a whole load of red ants merrily eating through a white beetroot plant, they are literally cutting the leaf stalks off.

It always seem to be black ants that farm aphids, I've found them on a parsnip just now as well.

FairyElephant_2

If they nest around the roots of a plant they will kill it - this has happened to me several times (I think my house & garden must be built on a gigantic ants nest as we get so many of them I just can't seem to get rid of them!).

I had 2 lovely palms in large terracotta pots - until the ants nested in them and they died off.

Last year they even killed my tomatoes by nesting in the grow bag!

They are the bane of my life...I had to resort to chemical sprays & powder, but all that sems to do it get rid of that litrtle colony, and then another one springs up somewhere else - GGRRRR!!!!

justpoppy

just been digging my neglected garden
and found so many red/orange coloured ants

any ideas on the best way to get rid of the ants

thankyou

arkonite_babe

We have a thread similar to this already, I'll add your query to it so all the replies are together. Posts are listed in date order so you'll need to read from the beginning to catch up