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Florida Gardening

Ants in my (potted) plants!

12 years ago

With all this rain, the ants seem to have decided to move up in the world, into my potted plants. I have a number of large pots outside, some on pedestals, some on the ground. The ants have even invaded a plant in the pool cage. I'm afraid the poison I use to control ants (Seven) might harm the plant. Should I ignore them? Can they harm the plant? This stuff is all new to me.

Comments (9)

starryrider
12 years ago
Seven will not harm your potted plants
yumtomatoes
12 years ago
What kind of ants? Red or black? If red fire ants, use Amdro bait. If black or red and not fire ants, use terro bait.

Sevin might not kill your plants, but it kills honey bees. The amdro and terro will kill the ants and let the bees live.
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I was at the coast all week, we had over 12 inches of rain while I was down. The ants started making mounds on top of my dayliles. Thursday I noticed one daylily had a mount on top of it. Friday I noticed another, my husband just put down 36 million beneficial nematodes 6 days before, but just to make sure I got some of the ant and grub flakes that come in the hugh bags, and put on top of the mounds. Saturday, I checked it did not work, it may take a few days for it to work, but they had completely covered two more dayliles and the yard had mounds as large as 3 ft long. I am covered with ant bites. I finally went to Wal-Mart last night and got some of the ortho ant killer, and sprinkled on my dayliles before I left today. Ants will kill anything if they get into it, they have destroyed many of my plants including 3 hugh palm trees. I do not know how long before the nematodes go into action, I could not wait, these ants were to aggressive. I hope I did not hurt the nematodes by doing this. Barbra
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echobelly
Original Author
12 years ago
It looks like some pots have red and some have black ants. I didn't know that about Sevin, I'll switch to the other baits. How can I tell the difference between a red and a fire ant? It seems like most of the ants here are fire ants, and have nests under all the weeds I decide to pull. I've got the scars to prove it.
yumtomatoes
12 years ago
The fire ants are small ants. If they are small, red and in Florida, then I think it is safe to say they are fire ants. I think carpenter ants can be red, also, but are larger than fire ants.

If you have both red and black ants, I would use both terro and amdro. They are baits so you won't see results instantly. And initially, it will attract more ants. The workers have to carry the bait back to the nest and feed it to the queen in order to eliminate the colony. The bait kills the workers and the queens who ingest it but it takes a day or 2 to see results.

Sevin won't kill the queen unless you find the colony's nest and dust/spray the nest.
alys_esmond USDA 5b Toronto
12 years ago
I've got lots of ants, but have taken a live and let live stance. As long as nobody bit me, I left them alone. That is until I got stung by fire ants in my garden. Nasty critters. Gotta go.
So, off to the garden center to get me some Amdro and I learned how to tell red ants from fire ants:

Sprinkle Amdro on a fire ant nest and they go nuts grabbing the bait granules and carrying them into the nest.

Sprinkle it onto a red ant nest and they go nuts grabbing the granules and carrying them AWAY from the nest!

MUCH safer than sticking a toe near the mound in question :-)
yumtomatoes
12 years ago
Interesting alys, I found something similar is true of Terro - if you sprinkle the granules on a fire ant nest, the fire ants carry it away from the nest. The black ants take it into the nest.

Terro comes in liquid bait stations that I use inside my home, but for outdoors, I use the terro granules.

I try not to kill the ants and live and let live, but like you, the exception is the fire ants. The other exception is any ant inside my home. We get what I call sugar ants here which will swarm all over any food you leave out on the counter. Those have to go as do carpenter ants that can destroy the wood frame of your house.
yumtomatoes
12 years ago
oh and the sugar ants LOVE the terro liquid bait stations. So much so, it is kind of disgusting to see them all over one of the bait stations but not as disgusting as it is to see them all over a cake I have cooling on a rack on the kitchen counter.
Leah Choi
last year
Do you think the Terro will harm the plants? For example, if the granules are sprinkled on the soil, would the granules harm my vegetables?
carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
last year
Hello Leah - this conversation is from 10 years ago, so I'm not sure who can answer your question, but I can tell you I found an outdoor liquid ant bait from Terro that comes in a plastic station with a spike so you can stick it in the soil in your pot. I'm trying it in some of mine and so far, so good.

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