Ants in the garden

[peep]

Hi All,

I seem to have discovered an ants nest at the base of a young fruit tree in
my back yard. It's well away from the house, but I am concerned that the
ants may damage the tree. I only started noticing them some time after I
sprinkled cow manure and laid some mulch. Is there anything I can do without
poisoning the tree?

Regards, Rick.

[len brauer]

g'day rick,

the ants are unlikely to do damage to the tree as such, but they could
bring in thrips/mealy bugs/scale, and infest the tree with these as
they use these bugs as a food source. so you need to protect the tree
from that. there is a gel you can buy that fruit orchardists use to
paint around the trunk and create a sticky barrier the ants can't
cross.

or you can smear vaseline around the trunk with the same effect.

the ants can be killed or moved on in number of ways, set a dripping
hose up over the nest this can move them on after about 4 days, or
flood the nest a few times a day for about the same amount of days. or
you could look on my remedies page for a variety of ant control
methods.

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://hub.dataline.net.au/~gardnlen/

[peep]

Thanks for the advice Len. I will give it a go. The ants don't appear to be
climbing the trunking. They're isolated to the ground around the tree.

"len brauer" > wrote in message
...
> g'day rick,
>
> the ants are unlikely to do damage to the tree as such, but they could
> bring in thrips/mealy bugs/scale, and infest the tree with these as
> they use these bugs as a food source. so you need to protect the tree
> from that. there is a gel you can buy that fruit orchardists use to
> paint around the trunk and create a sticky barrier the ants can't
> cross.
>
> or you can smear vaseline around the trunk with the same effect.
>
> the ants can be killed or moved on in number of ways, set a dripping
> hose up over the nest this can move them on after about 4 days, or
> flood the nest a few times a day for about the same amount of days. or
> you could look on my remedies page for a variety of ant control
> methods.
>
> len
>
> snipped
> --
> happy gardening
> 'it works for me it could work for you,'
>
> "in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the
environment
> http://hub.dataline.net.au/~gardnlen/