Ants in the garden...

[paulmarg]

Does anyone have a solution for getting rid of ants permanently in a flower garden,before I plant daffodil and tulip bulbs?
I tried boric acid mixed with sugar but they seem to love it!!!!
We are fulltimers, but love to add a few flowers on the site where we spend part of our summers.

[paulmarg]

Does anyone have a solution for getting rid of ants permanently in a flower garden,before I plant daffodil and tulip bulbs?
I tried boric acid mixed with sugar but they seem to love it!!!!
We are fulltimers, but love to add a few flowers on the site where we spend part of our summers.

[plntmgr]

I spray them on their trail with 1/2 C rubbing alcohol and a 1/4 C liquid soap in a 16 oz. 4TBS liquid soap to 16 oz spray bottle. The home centers have a granule that they take back to the nest, but it takes awhile for that, but DO NOt use in a vegetable garden. Hope that helps. Don

[doc]

Sevin garden insecticide. Dust it lightly in the spring when they are out crawling or if they are fire ants, stir them up and make them mad, then dust them with Sevin.

[NeilV]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by paulmarg:
Does anyone have a solution for getting rid of ants permanently in a flower garden,before I plant daffodil and tulip bulbs?
I tried boric acid mixed with sugar but they seem to love it!!!!
We are fulltimers, but love to add a few flowers on the site where we spend part of our summers. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Terro seems to work well for me. It is basically poisoned sugar water and the ants do seem to fight for it. It is a bit more potent then boric acid and can get the ant population down for months. You will have to give it a few days but it does work.

[CQ]

if you want to stick with the home made boric solution: Ants have a habit of changing food sources from sugars to carbohydrates. It may become necessary to mix peanut butter with boric acid to supply both forms of bait to keep the ants feeding on the boric acid.

You can also use instant grits around the mound. And yes it must be the instant variety. Must be very dry and the longer it's dry the better it works. Once wet and re-constituted, it's simply food. It works as a partial bait and can, sometime reach the queen. If that fails...

The only thing that will actually kill them off is to get to the queen with a bait containing one of the following : Abba, Affirm, Agri-Mek, Avid, Dynamec, Vertimec and Zephyr. They're all just brand names for Abamectin. And yes it's natural as well.

[Toby]

Doc

Be very careful when stiring up those fire ants, especially the one with the horn. Shes the one that blast on the horn Dah Dah Dah-da-dah when they are up past your knees to let everyone know its time for all to bite at once. I've been known to come out of my pants in the front yard at times. s/Toby