How To Rid Garden Soil Of Ants
Growing your garden and enjoying the beautiful sunset with your kids from there is fantastic until garden ants strike. Garden ants are able not only to damage your plants but also to make your once lovely garden an unpleasant place for you and your kids. So getting rid of ants in the garden is an essential aspect.
Ants in the garden is not an entirely bad thing. Ants help to break down materials like leaves, tree branches, and trunks, which in turn serve as nutrients for the plant. Ants are also crucial in the garden as they help to properly aerate the soil by burrowing it into the ground, creating holes for proper soil drainage. With all these kind words, you may be wondering why you should even bother removing the ants in your garden. Shortly, I'll show you the extend of damage ants can cause in your garden.
Trying to get rid of these ants in your garden can become a strenuous activity, especially when they keep coming back even after clearing them. What's even more difficult is removing the ant from your yard without harming your plants. Because you're protecting your plants, not every ant extermination technique will be suitable for use.
That is why we've compiled this article for you. To show you how you can safely remove ants in your garden without damaging the garden plants. Before we look at that, you must know the common ants that attack the garden.
In this article, we have collected the possible options that you have to remove ants from your garden while keeping your plants alive. We will discuss the pros and cons of each option so you can freely decide which one to choose:
- Calling an expert (Recommended)
- Using ant killer chemicals (DIY option)
- Using household items (Cheapest option)
1. Calling an Expert (Recommended)
Calling an expert to handle the extermination of these troublesome insects is a sure-fire way to handle the situation. Using any of the other two methods mentioned below (Home-made and DIY with Chemicals) requires time and is barely effective in clearing your garden of ants while keeping your plants safe.
The expert option covers the whole extermination process including any analysis, removal and vegetation protection. It cost around $250 on average to remove ants excluding carpenter and fire ants from a 3000 sq. ft. house.
Experts are trained and have years of experience getting rid of ants. They first analyze the extent of the infestation and type of ant present, so they know the right solution to use. Unlike when you DIY and do trial and error with the solutions or even the less effective household items method, using experts is effective and fast. All these, while ensuring your plants are not damaged since they have better experience and equipment. If you want to get a specialist ant removal agency to handle the extermination of ants in your garden without damaging your plants, call (844) 248-9199
2. Using Ant Killer Chemicals (DIY Option)
If you want a more effective strategy, away from the haphazard household methods, you can use chemicals to rid your garden of stubborn ants without harming your plants. These chemicals are made for ant removal and unlike household methods, will work effectively if use correctly. This chemical strategy is a do-it-yourself option as you can buy the chemicals and apply them yourself. Although this method is more expensive than using household items, it is still pretty cheap and a far better value for money if you know how to use the chemicals. Here are some chemicals for ant removal:
Taurus SC (For Outdoor and Indoor)
Taurus SC is an insecticide that focuses on clearing ants and termites from your garden. It comprises 9.1% fipronil. It is a powerful insecticide as it is non-repellent and, as such, is unnoticeable by the ants till they have come in contact with it and spread it in their colonies. It takes just a matter of weeks to clear out a whole ant colony.
Taurus SC is a water-based suspension concentrate, and you need a sprayerto get this suspension on your garden.
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First, mix 0.8 Oz of Taurus per gallon of water in the pump sprayer at a dilution rate of 0.06%. Spray around your garden, forming a perimeter that spreads 18 inches to the side and is 18 inches close to the vegetation. Clear any obstruction that may enable the ant to move across the boundary of the Taurus without touching the suspension. Spray around the ant routes, too, to ensure they get the solution inside their nest. To get your Taurus SC ant chemical killer go
here.
Here is a small video tutorial to show how its done.
Maxforce Fleet
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Maxforce Fleet is an ant destroyer gel that baits ants into consuming them and then kills the ant. It contains fipronil – the go-to ant killer. It is fast-acting as it only takes 3-5 days to clear ants in your garden. However, it is carbohydrate-based, so ants who prefer protein will not bother to consume it. Maxforce Fleet is powerful because when ants eat the gel, they later regurgitate it often in their colonies and share it with other ants, which will increase its effect.
Use a syringe to drop tiny portions of this gel along the ant routes and around your garden. Get your maxforce fleet gel here .
Complete Ant Bait Kit
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While the maxforce fleet is a powerful bait, it is limited to only ants interested in carbohydrate portions. The complete ant bait kit covers these differences by providing carbohydrate and protein-based baits, so no ant escapes. They are also indoor solutions you can use inside your house.
This complete kit consists of advion ant gel which is carbohydrate-based, and maxforce complete bait, which is protein-based. The two, working in tandem, will rid your garden of ants in a short time. To apply them, squeeze out the advion gel on any surface around ant routes. Sprinkle the maxforce granules around the advion gel. Get your complete ant bait kit here .
3. Using Household Items (Not an Effective Method)
Having established that ants in your garden can be a menace to yourself and your plants, getting rid of them becomes a priority with many garden owners looking for quick solutions to their problems. This leads to the cheapest method available – the use of household items. This method is also the least effective among the three. You will struggle to get rid of a large portion of the ants in your garden using household items. These are more like stop-gap options to survive the night or the day before looking for a more permanent fix. There are several household items you can use, namely;
Use Hot/Cold Water
To rid your yard of ants, you need to find their nest with their colonies. Killing the workers, you see walking around wouldn't do much if their nest is still around as the queen will lay more eggs and replace them in no time. If you can see their nest, one sure way to kill the ants is to pour hot water inside their colony.
Because our aim is not to harm the garden, where the ant colonies are located close to vegetation, using hot water will not be suitable as it can damage the plants. Even though cold water will not kill the ants but using cold water instead will make the area damp and chase the ants away.
Drop Food-Grade Diatomaceous Earth Close to Ant Nest
This is a dehydration powder made from hard-shelled algae in fossil form. This is a slow but effective means to rid your garden of ants as it takes weeks to dehydrate the ants in the nest. It is also safe for your plant and humans.
Introduce Beneficial Nematodes
This is an easy to apply nematode that is applied using a sprayer. It is harmless to plants and humans, and kills the ants if you get the nematodes to touch the ants directly. This is where it gets more difficult. The method is both stressful and limited as you cannot spread the nematodes on all the ants. It works by entering their bodies and depositing harmful bacteria that kill them from within.
Use Orange Seed Spray
The orange spray can be bought from local garden stores or even made at home by following any of the DIY guides available. This spray is safe for both plants and humans as it is a home-based product. Orange peels however, is not very effective in removing ants as it works by suffocating the ants and stripping them or their waxed coating but the smell is hardly strong enough to cause this effect.
Cinnamon
This is a more subtle approach to stop ants from destroying your plant. Simply put it around the plant you want to protect and it should keep some ants out. It may however, struggle to keep out some types of ants. Cinnamon repels ants and does not kill them, so it is a more humane method.
Liquid Soap and Oil
The mixture of liquid soap and oil is an effective ant-killing combo as it weakens their exoskeletons and suffocates them. You can quickly make this as all the ingredients can be found in your home. Mix one tablespoon of liquid dishwashing soap with one and a half tablespoon of the regular cooking oil. Pour them directly on the ants and inside their nest for effective extermination.
The Borax and Sugar Combination
This is one of the most effective methods of killing ants in your garden. You can completely clear your troublesome garden ants within a week. To set this combination up, mix borax and sugar into a gel and drop tiny pieces close to the ant's nest and trail.
The worker ants will eat some (since they're attracted to sugar) and take the rest back to their queen and the others in the nest, and that is where the magic happens. The natural boric acid will kill the ants after a short while. The borax solution is safe to use around plants but is a little toxic to humans and animals, so avoid using it where your kids or pets can reach it.
Which Solution is Best?
You have three different methods of removing ants from your garden without damaging your plants, but they all have different effectiveness and ease of use. How do you know which of them is the best to avoid time-wasting or even damage your garden?
- Calling an expert ant removal agency to handle the infestation is the most recommended option. Even though it is the most expensive option among the three, you get your money's worth as it saves you time and effort while being highly effective. Experts will first analyze to determine which type of ant is in your garden and the best solution to take; this removes guessing from their solutions and makes the extermination fast.
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- Using chemicals (DIY) is an effective method of ant removal from your garden as the chemical you'll be using were made specifically for this purpose. With this method, the problem does not lie with the material used like in the house hold section, instead it lies with you, the operator. If you have no previous experience handling these chemicals, you may damage the plants around. You'll also be doing a lot of trial and error since you do no not the right chemical to buy for the ant you have in your garden.
It is cheap (more expensive than using household items, though) but will require a lot of effort on your part. There's also a chance that you might ruin it and cause more harm. If you have some experience handling chemicals or you have the time to go through numerous YouTube videos to learn, you might pull off this method. If you decide to go with the DIY ant chemical option, you'll need to purchase the ant chemical, sprayer, spreader, or syringe (depending on the type of chemical used). It would cost anything around $30 to $60 to remove ants from an acre of land, depending on the number of times you apply the chemical.
- While using homemade items to remove ants is the cheapest method since most of the materials you need might just be sitting on your shelves, it is hardly any effective. They typically take a long time to work and struggle to rid the garden of all the ants. This is because these house hold items were not made for ant removal.
Why You Should Get Rid of Ants in Your Garden?
You may be wondering what all the fuss is about since ants have some benefits in the garden. A couple of ants in your garden might be ideal, but ants reproduce aggressively so there's no limit to their number in a short while.
They can eat up your plants and spoil your vegetation. In numbers, they can clear out a farm in record time leaving nothing but pieces of leaves, fruits and broken stems in their wake.
Ants are also an unpleasant sight in your garden with some of them emitting offensive odor that makes the whole area to stink. That's not even all, ants do even more damage, this time on humans and pets. While ants may not be able to kill agile animals, they can attack sick and immobile animals including new-born and kill them in the process. If you have pets or a ranch, ants can be a big problem. Some ant bite can be really painful and uncomfortable. Imagine having a quite time in your garden only to be bitten by ants.
Knowing all the harm an Ant can bring to you and your garden, its time to be proactive and Call an Expert Ant Removal Agency and get rid of them immediately!
Common Garden Ants
Knowing the species of ants attacking your plants is the first step to getting rid of them. There are over 10000 species of ants in the world right now. A lot of those are extinct or do not attack plants, here are some of the common ants you'll find in your garden.
- Lasius Niger (the common black garden ant): This ant species is a common sight in gardens and has an average population of 5000 ants per colony. The Lasius Niger anthill is usually found at the edge of the patio or garden areas. Formic acid and its jaws are their means of protection against predators.
- Lasius Flavia (yellow meadow ant): This yellow ant species is also a common sight in gardens and is not so harmful, just like their Niger counterparts. One of the most significant indicators you have Lasius Flavia in your garden is the sighting of small moulds around your yard.
- Fire ant: This is also a common ant family you'll most likely find in your garden. The fire ant family consists of over 200 different species peculiar to different locations. Depending on your location, the red imported fire ant (South America) and the European fire ant (Europe) are common species you may find in your garden. The fire ant is typically known for its reddish-brown colour and painful stings.
- Crematogaster (acrobat ant): This is an aggressive garden ant species with vibrant workers. Their mode of attack (raising the abdomen) is what gave them the acrobatic ant side name. Their colour ranges from yellowish-brown to reddish-black, and they can be found nesting in moist wood lying around in your garden.
Summary
There you go, straightforward ways to get rid of ants without killing your plants. Remember, ants are essential in the plant ecosystem, so completely removing them from your farm might negatively affect them. Nevertheless, they can be destructive when it comes to some species and the number of ants, so let their level of destruction guide you on the steps to take. Choose the most suitable method for your needs and rid your yard of troublesome ants.
How To Rid Garden Soil Of Ants
Source: https://www.igra-world.com/get-rid-of-ants-in-garden/
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