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 I don’t mean to get personal, but have you got ants in your plants? Your pot plants I mean. It’s quite a common thing and you can often see their trails around the base of pots. But are they doing any damage? Well, yes they are and I’ll tell you why.
If you pull your plant out of it's pot, you may find that the mix has become prime real estate for ants, with giant tunnels all through the root ball. It creates a situation where there’s far too much air around the roots and in time, the roots will dry out and the plant will suffer.
So what can you do about it? Well for a small infestation, the easiest thing to do is simply dunk the pot into a bucket of water for an hour or so. Any ants that don’t drown will get out and find somewhere else to go.
In cases where the ants are taking over, the best option is to clean off as much of old mix as you can, give the roots a good soaking in a bucket of water and then re-pot the plant into some fresh potting mix. That way, you can refill all those dangerous gaps left by the ants.
So how can you keep the ants away in future? Well you could try sprinkling some chilli powder over the surface of the mix. That can often deter them. Some gardeners find that sprinkling a little borax is also effective.
Got any great gardening tips of you’re own? Then your best kept secret could be immortalised in a new book by Phil Dudman and ABC Books.
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