How to reduce the amount of Ants in your garden
Common ants thrive in lawns and garden beds that are struggling, dry, bare or patchy. As soon as the lawn and garden is thick, green and lush, the ants tend to disappear on their own, and are far less prolific. By improving the general health and quality of your garden you can reduce and even eliminate your ant problem in a totally natural and organic way.
Here are 4 tips to get you started:
- Instruct your gardener / garden service to cut the grass on a higher lawnmower setting so the grass is longer. Do not cut the lawn with a weed-eater or let them shave it right down each time it is cut (which they love to do as they can get away with longer time between cuts). This encourages ants. The longer the lawn is cut, the thicker it will fill out in time, and ants do not thrive in this environment and will naturally move away.
- Plant around paving and garden beds with ground-cover plants to ensure there is no bare soil visible. The entire garden bed area should be fully covered with plant material to deter ant nests.
- The best thing you can do to reduce ants is to fertilise your lawn at least twice a year in spring and late summer (September/October) and (March/April). Use a special lawn fertiliser that is high in Nitrogen for best results. LAN or 5:1:5 or 4:1:1 are all good options. The first number indicates the amount of Nitrogen, so any fertiliser with the first number that is higher will be good for lawns.
- Alternatively, we can supply a totally natural organic fertiliser called Accelerator. It does not need to be watered in, and comes in pellet form and can be scattered on the grass and in garden beds anytime. It comes in a 40kg bag which covers 100m2 of lawn area.
This alternative recommendation to you will take more time for you to achieve results than a quick knockdown spray. However, it will be the better solution and your money will be better spent long-term improving the overall garden health.
We hope this information is helpful to you, please let us know if there is anything more we can do to assist you.
