Summertime is upon and as you know, that means ant mounds are bound to start popping up in our yards. What’s worse is when it rains, this can spread the ants to different parts of the yard, and get them in our pools and walkways. Luckily at Cypress Lawn & Landscaping we’ve got several tips and suggestions for organic remedies to keep ants from colonizing on your lawn and ruining your chances of walking barefoot in the grass without getting bit.
Organic Ant Extermination tips:
1) Predators: Believe it or not, sometimes having other buts live around in your yard will prevent ants from nesting there. Things such as spiders, dirt-dobbers, humpback flies, and groundbeatles, all feast on ants quite regularly. If you have multiple mounds, another interesting easy suggestion is to take a shovel-scoop full of one of the ant mounds and dump it on top of the other mound, and then do the reverse. Because of the hive mind mentality of ants, the ants from the opposing mounds will begin a war with each other, causing them to wipe each other out.
2) Repellent plants: Having plants such as Catnip, Pennyroyal, Peppermint, Sage, and Spearment placed sparsely around your garden and will keep ants from mounding near them. If they do being mounding, try planting Tansy somewhat close to the mound, this works on all ants, though sugar ants seem to be the most deterred by the Tansy plant.
3) Barriers: There are myriad different barriers you can use to not only keep ants out of your house, but also out of your yard. For instance, if you spray a small amount of vinegar at the base of all the entrances of your house, this will keep ants from entering your home. Likewise, if you pour a circle of Epsom salt around a mound and then a liberal amount on top of the mound, the salt will not only kill the ants, but keep them from escaping, as they will not be able to get through the circle surrounding the mound. You can also pour a liberal amount of apple cider vinegar down all of the entrance holes to the nest. Not only will this drown many of the ants inside, but those trying to escape will get suck in the sticky vinegar, blocking all escape roots.
There are many different home remedies to get rid of ants, but if these don’t seem to do the trick, you can always purchase fire ant killer from your local home and garden store as a last result and sprinkle that on your lawn after ever mowing to make sure the ants don’t come back. If you have any other lawn maintenance or lawn care needs, be sure to check out Cypress Lawn & Landscaping online and schedule an appointment with us today!