Ants and your Lawn!

Ant Problems

Ants are dormant through out the colder months, once soil temperatures raise the ants become more active. You will notice Ants in lawns more after a spell of rain, where they will produce Ant hills within the lawn. 
Ant hills in lawns can cause the lawn to die back due to the soil smothering the grass plant, also these hills can cause lawns to become very uneven if not dealt with correctly. Please be careful when using Ant Powders that look like Talc, these products stay on the surface and harm our precious bees.

 

Fun Facts

  • Ants Start off as eggs laid by the queen, once the grubs are fully grown they will spin a cocoon and start the transformation into a Ant. 
  • Male and Queen Ants are not only bigger than the poor workers, they also have wings.
  • Queens can live for 14-20 years, Males only a  few weeks and Workers about 8-10 weeks
  • Ants are the longest living insect, with the Pogonomyrmex Owygheei can live up to 30 years!
  • There are over 12,000 species worldwide.

What Treatments do we recommend

Ant Stop

Effective for up to 1 month after application - Easy to use - no dust, less mess - Kills ants - Kills the nest and forms a long lasting tangible barrier - Attractive to ants giving effective control, We stock this on our Vans

Nematode Treatment

Use Nemasys No Ants to deal with an ant infestation, without any of the precautions associated with chemical use. The ants do not tolerate the nematodes (Steinernema feltiae) near their nests and move their nests away from these areas.

Cultural Control

Cultural control is digging out the Ants nest. The nests are around 12 inches down, you will see ant eggs which look like small white tic tacs. some people do opt for using hot water after the nest has been removed, but please don’t use this on the lawn, as you will kill the lawn as you can see below.  

After Treatment advice

Once you have treated the Ants nest in your lawn, you then need to fix the problems they have caused. Depending on how bad the Ant hill is you will either need to use a stiff brush on a dry day to sweep/disperse the soil or use a spade to slice the top of the nest off. 

Lawn Seed

You may need to pop some seed down after you have levelled the area where the Ants hill/nest was. We offer seed from the Van see link below

We do not offer a treatment for Ants, so I hope this little bit of advice helps you with the issues that Ants in lawns can give us.

If you have a question about anything mentioned, or would like some help with your lawn, please contact us via phone or email.