Hi, I have a curry plant in a pot outside my house. It's been doing
really well and until recently has had bright yellow flowers and a great
smell.

Over the last few days I've noticed the flowers are going a horrible
brown / yellow colour, the smell has gone and it's covered in ants!

The thyme, lavender, mint, rosemary nearby are not affected.

Is something wrong here? Do they normally go brownish round about now?
Is there anything I can do about the ants?

Thanks for any advice,

Tom

Well, you can't expect flowers to last forever! They have to die off
sometime and the browning of the flower heads indicates that this is
happening - it's all perfectly natural. As for the ants; they will
swarm over any plant that is infested with aphids or other sap-sucking
insects since these secrete considerable quantities of sugary liquids,
which the ants love. Helichrysum italicum ssp. serotinum (curry
plant) tends to attract aphids, which colonise shoot tips and flower
stems and may have even been placed there by the ants. Now the
flowers of your 'curry plant' are over, you might as well give it a
good trim - cutting back the flower stems and shoots to encourage a
good bushy habit. Then drench with an insecticide or weak solution of
washing up liquid to get rid of the aphids.

Dave Poole wrote:
Well, you can't expect flowers to last forever! They have to die off
sometime and the browning of the flower heads indicates that this is
happening - it's all perfectly natural. As for the ants; they will
swarm over any plant that is infested with aphids or other sap-sucking
insects since these secrete considerable quantities of sugary liquids,
which the ants love. Helichrysum italicum ssp. serotinum (curry
plant) tends to attract aphids, which colonise shoot tips and flower
stems and may have even been placed there by the ants. Now the
flowers of your 'curry plant' are over, you might as well give it a
good trim - cutting back the flower stems and shoots to encourage a
good bushy habit. Then drench with an insecticide or weak solution of
washing up liquid to get rid of the aphids.

Cheers Dave, much appreciated. I'm very new to gardening so I'm still a
bit wary of the whole trim / prune thing, but I'll get it done this w/e.

Strangely, the ants seem to have gone.

Thanks for the advice,

Tom