All the dirt in the saucer has appeared in two days!
How can I get rid of this ant infestation?
The pot lives in my conservatory.
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I have used two methods successfully. One is to make a dilute drench of malathion in water and use it to water the plant. The other is to use an "ant stake"; I use Grants for Ants.
While successful, neither method is necessarily permanent. The malathion is very quick, but does not last unless the ants actually have their home nest in the pot. The "ant stake" method might require a week or more to yield success, but it works even if the home nest is remote.
We had a similar problem and almost gave up. We would have just thrown it out, but it was of great sentimental value. The plant was about 120 cm high and across, and in a 45 cm square tub. It was all very heavy!
Soaking the soil with water containing washing up liquid didn't work. Using an insecticide didn't work. Both methods killed lots of ants, but some remained, and there were probably eggs hatching as well.
In the end, the only solution was to remove the plant from the tub and wash off all the earth with a high-pressure stream of water. At this time of year, the plant will not be harmed. After all the earth was removed, the roots were allowed to dry and an insecticidal powder was puffed all over them. After leaving for a few days, the plant was repotted in a dry mix, and left for a fortnight before it was watered again. NB the tub drainage holes were covered with weed-proof membrane to stop ants entering through them, and removing soil through them.
That was last year, and this year the plant has been growing well, and indeed flowered as usual in winter.
Neither active ingredient is approved in the UK unfortunately (the post was via gardenbanter, a UK-based forum which redirects questions at random to uk.rec.gardening or rec.gardens).
There are no equivalent products for malathion, but there are for hydramethylnon (in the ant stake).
I have used the un-potting-wash-down-to-the-roots method for some hefty plants and some smaller ones over the years. Never added insecticides to the task, but have had success wioth just the hose-down..
Boron Elgar wrote: ...
a major mess and disturbance for a large plant.
a general purpose insecticide may not work you have to actually get enough poison to the queen who is laying the eggs and if the poison is too strong it will kill the workers before they feed it to the queen.
there are ant poisons and baits which work well. just use one of those. they are not expensive and what is good about them is that they are only picked up by and affect the ants in question and not everything else. often it can be done without using too much poison, but you must keep the bait station filled up as long as the ants keep taking it. may be a week or two before you stop seeing the ants.
songbird
There was no reason to use any insecticide. These are large, warm-weather trees (various citrus, fig, bougainvillea) that I bring inside for my NE winters. It isn't hard to roll the tub on its side, pull the plant out, and hose off the dirt and examine the roots before re-potting.
I am not against using chems when needed - not at all - but this works well for me when it happens.
Hi,
I have a similar problem with ants. Could you ellaborate a little more on what the 'ant steak' method is? I'm looking to try anything.
Thanks in advnace.
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It is a stake, not a steak (not meat).
Grant's for Ants comes in boxes of 10. Each ant stake consists of a flatended oval plastic can about 1/2 inch thick and 1-1/4 x 2 inches across. The can is mounted on edge on a plastic stake about 4-/12 incnes long and 1-1/4 inch wide. The is a 1/4 hole in the center of the exposed face of the can. Inside the can is a jelled bait that is 1% hydramethelnon.
To use, I hold the stake horizontally and put 1-2 drops of water on the hole. Using a finishing nail, I stir the water into the jell, using the nail to smear a little of the jell on the outside of the can. Then, I push the stake's pointed end into the ground where I see the ants.
The stake does not kill the adult worker ants. Instead, they carry the bait back to the nest, feeding it to the larvae and queen. The bait kills the larvae and causes the queen to stop laying fertile eggs.
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