Bug Lover's Gardening Guide....

... the ecologically friendly guide to pest control....

I just thought I'd start a question & answer thread about how to deal with garden problems in a bug-friendly manner. Obviously, we don't want to go spraying around PathClear or Nippon everywhere and upsetting our toothy little friends.

First question is this:

I have several red-ant nests in the middle of my lawns, to such and extent, they're patches of bare earth.

How can I get rid of the little varmints?

http://www.bluemacaws.​org/images/blue214.jpg

Hmm - interesting question- I do have red ants nests in my lawn but apart from making little earth mounds every now and then - they don't make any bare patches. Suspect I would try heavily flooding the nests every evening for a week or so (assuming that's not happening naturally at the moment) and see if that makes any difference.
Brian V.

Hiya Pete,

Recon you're stuck with them if you don't wanna kill em

If you needed to kill them?? pour boiling water down the nest that'll kill em eggs n all plus the grass roots, then reseed when there's no sign of life.

Me I'd leave em to get on with life wait till they've moved on then reseed

RM's idea is the best, nice one

Cheers for now
Mark

LordV wrote in post #3574300
Hmm - interesting question- I do have red ants nests in my lawn but apart from making little earth mounds every now and then - they don't make any bare patches. Suspect I would try heavily flooding the nests every evening for a week or so (assuming that's not happening naturally at the moment) and see if that makes any difference.
Brian V.

Well, the heavy rain has done a great job of flooding the area, but that's not shifted them. We used to ude the boiling water trick when the nests were under paving slabs. I don't really want to kill the grass off any more than I can do.

If they'll eventually migrate away, I can live with that.

Anyone else feel free to ask any other kinda related questions...

VINEGAR kills em dead. but grass will burn out too. It will return, but they wont.