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I’m home today, as it’s dry I decided to cut the grass, I last cut it Sunday week ago , I now have 41 ant hills, the mower scalped them all, they are going mad. To make it worse it was 2:00 pm and the mosquitoes were already biting.
I think we’re in fir an odd summer
I assume this isn't a traditional British garden. If you also have an anteater, you're fine.
I have the same problem in Harrow. Any idea where is the best place to hire an anteater for an hour or two?Quote:
Originally Posted by jukeboxs
My lawn is also covered in ant hills and I am blasting them with the hose. I have no idea what effect this will have on the problem, but it is making me feel better!
My garden is riddled with them. I’ve been hosing them but they comeback with a vengeance.
I can’t remember it ever being this bad, I’m assuming it has something to do with the weather
Yes I’ve got loads on my lawn too… more than I’ve ever seen before
Exactly the same with my lawn, I just pile through them on the mower and they soon disappear. Won’t be long before they’re all taking to the air, which I still find amazing that they all manage to coordinate at the same time.
I also thought it was just me...
Chatting about is this week at work, my business partners mate is a pest exterminator and says this is what you need to remove ants from your garden
https://www.nematodesdirect.co.uk/9-no-ants-nematodes
In my case I think the Ants would just move somewhere else in the garden, but may be ideal for smaller gardensQuote:
Originally Posted by Franky Four Fingers
Lol yeh, closer to the house, I was also thinking you’d then have to cover your garden in something to kill the worms and so on.Quote:
Originally Posted by adrianw
Glad it is not just us! I have never seen so many, both red and black ants and 20+ nests in our lawn. I’m leaving them alone apart from when they start on the pointing between the patio slabs…
Waste of time and money in my experience. I’ve tried nematodes on a couple of occasions and both times it had precisely zero effect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Franky Four Fingers
Our lawn looks awful as a result too, glad we are all in similar positions...gutted, as the grass where they are not is better than it has ever looked with the efforts we put in.
Reminds me of years ago where my wife used boiling water to rid us of ants....on the grass, so we simply had a large dead patch of grass looking far worse.
Same problem down here in Hampshire. Feels like a game of whac-a-mole, raking down all the yellow ant hills on the lawn. I too have assumed it must be to do with favourable weather conditions this year. Presumably it may be followed by a glut of whatever is next up the food chain?
Noticed quite a few nests on what is still mowed lawn on our garden.
Every year though, I’ve been turning more and more of the lawn to meadow, and cutting paths through it. I’ve noticed a lot more ant nests in there as well, where they do no harm.
The amount of bee and insect life that’s in amongst the meadow parts is massive compared to the barren lawns.
And it’s very low maintenance and I think looks beautiful.
Lawn is probably the worst thing you can have in your garden after concrete for nature. Meadow is fantastic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tooks
I welcome and respect ants in my garden ... they're part of the garden's ecosystem. Ants do not deserve to be exterminated by ignorant householders who know 'Sweet Fanny Adams' about garden ecology. Some householders on seeing an ants' nest immediately go into their girly and unnecessary panic mode ... Ants are wonderful creatures ... nature will remedy any excess ants without interventions from frightened and nervous householders. Man up and leave them alone!!
You get my vote [emoji106]Quote:
Originally Posted by sundial
https://i.postimg.cc/rwMK450v/26-D41...1715-BE5-A.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by sundial
Nemasys!Quote:
Originally Posted by Franky Four Fingers
Awesome name for that product, all things considered. :loyal:
Personally I'm not nervous or frightened. Or ignorant of their role in the ecosystem. I just like to have a usable area of lawn without muddy mounds all over it. Our front garden is a wildflower meadow and I love the diversity of insect and bird life this encourages. But I'm equally keen to discourage ants away from the areas of the garden that I like to enjoy myself :0)Quote:
Originally Posted by sundial
(Also not keen on the way they encourage aphids on our plumb and pear trees but have introduced ladybirds to help fight the cause on that one)
Quite a few other fauna depend on ants, such as blue butterflies for instance. Leave them alone, they won't kill you.Quote:
Originally Posted by sundial
Last year the wife bought 2 hydrangea plants and placed them around the patio. They both flowered at the same time and very late in to the year, were very healthy and looked great. At the end of summer they were placed along with 2 bay trees in an tomato greenhouse and brought out after the end of the last frosts which was again quite late around here.Quote:
Originally Posted by sundial
A few months back we noticed that one was struggling, the new shoots weren’t as full and it just looked very ropey.
I left it a bit longer and eventually decided to swap places with the other one just in case it wasn’t getting the same amount of sun. It was when I moved it that I found that it was infested with black ants which had taken root deep inside the pot.
Not wanting to disturb the ants I decided to leave them be and see what would happen.
Here are 2 photos of both of the plants......gold star to anyone who can tell me which one doesn’t have ants in the root ball.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...4a06985168.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...255dfe3f8c.jpg
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I’ve found three when mowing the lawn today. We’ve always had a healthy number of black ants and flying ant day is always a pain but have never noticed hills before on the lawn. These three hills all contain red ants which we’ve never seen in our garden before.
I leave ant hills in My garden for the local woodpeckers to tuck into.As someone else stated they exist for a reason.