Ants??

I have 2 pots of asiatic lillies and i seem to have alot of ants around the pots and some crawling on the actual stems .Will them harm it in any way and if so how do i get rid of them ?

Thanks

Tam

 

Hi, Tam. I'm not sure I've welcomed you to GC and, if I haven't .... welcome!

I don't know that ants harm plants ... I'm not up on bugs and such creepy crawlie critters. I had them burrowing recently in a concrete pot containing Jasmine, Sollya and Abyssinian Gladiolus so I sprayed with soapy water (whatever washing up liquid you use) and it got rid of them ... as it will if they are about to march into your house.

 

Ants don't normally harm plants some even help with pollination - BUT -

They do 'farm' aphids, protecting them from predators and moving them around onto new sap filled shoots. The aphids produce a sticky honeydew as a waste product and the ants feed off this. The honeydew also becomes infected with sooty mould which can (in bad cases) kill the plant and the feeding aphids also weaken it and damage shoots and buds.

A weekly spray with soapy water solution will help rid plants of the aphids and the ants will generally move elsewhere. Couple of drops/litre is ususally strong enough. I use un-perfumed green Fairy Original.

 

Hi lady of leisure ,thanks for the welcome

I shall spray them asap,thanks for the help LOL and Frogesque

 

Just been reading the ant posts as we've got a load in our containers which I'm clearing out in preparation for new planting.

Might sound silly, can I just leave them in the existing compost? (I can't really afford to replenish all the containers with fresh.)

I would really welcome more information about ants in containers. I'm only a novice at gardening, but I don't think I've come across so many ants in them before.

Thanks a million in advance...

 

Thats really interesting frogesque! I didnt know that.
Hi Milly, I had a nest of ants in my composter and I moved the compost to a raised bed and some containers. Some of them set up home in the raised bed but the ones in the containers seemed to move out pretty quick, so I cant comment on that. I have no problems with the ones in the raised bed though, I've heard they help to loosen up the soil.

 

Ants are harmless to vegetation as frogesque has said. I quite like having the little critters around. They're fascinating - but then I'm the sort who'd happily have an ant farm!!

 

Thanks for your help..... busy little souls those ants...strange how they like some places better than others...thanks again.