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Situation: I have a large tree sized planter that is housing endless colonies of ants. I went to rescue a miniature Hosta out of the planter and in a second had thousands of ants crawling up my hand shovel and arm. I want to start my plant a cedar trunk in a pot for future vines in this particular planter. How to best kill these bugger's? This is not a simple dump and use, because if I dump, it's on my property - not happening, besides it's very heavy. Is there some miracle cure (like salt on slugs) I can resort to? Boiling water.....that's a long way to go with a very large pot. Insecticides would kill the beneficial worms.....wah, wah, wah.....I don't even want the ants in my wagon....there are that many.
If the ants are getting underneath the pot, I'd put it underneath the pot. As far as I know, it won't hurt any type of plant and most pets aren't interested in it. Still, I try to put it where animals can't reach it, just in case the real odd ball pet that will try anything once decides to eat it.
About the worms, if you place the boric acid in the pot itself, place it on the surface on a jar lid or something to separate it from the dirt. As fa as I know, it won't hurt the worms, but why take chances?
Get those metal ant bait stakes that have been around for ever. Another way it to get the ants all riled up and when they are swarming above ground hit them all with raid. The ground worms will be fine.
THANK YOU BOTH SO MUCH! I have a mission. I have the baits (quite a few actually) and will stir up some ants tonight, lol. Then I will head on into town for some boric acid (which I have NEVER purchased in my life). OTOH, powdered sugar is not a problem, lol. I'll pick up some ladybugs to set free to go after those aphids.
Just the thought of boiling water or spraying chemicals was just not appealing.
Update: I did the boric acid and powdered sugar - about 1/2 cup of each. The critters must be taking it back to the Queen Mother, but we still have mild, straggling activity. I hesitate to dump the planter on my property. Tonight, I will repeat the recipe followed by a good old-fashioned drowning.
Even if I had purchased an ant farm, I could not have more ants in any one place.
brake cleaner works really well to kill ants ...im serious I found an infestation in my dads garage once and my dad handed me the brake cleaner and yep sure enough they were dead in about an hour ...hope you get rid of them they are a pain .
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