In the past few weeks, I've had multiple clients ask about how to control the number of ants in their lawn. The combination of a fairly dry winter and the extremely dry spring this year has created outstanding conditions for ants to expand their population and build more nests. This is the reason why you may feel like you're seeing more ant beds this year than normal.
For most people, the bite of an ant is just a painful nuisance. For children, pets, and people with allergies- they can be far more dangerous. Many people believe that fire ants are the only threat, but that’s just not the case in North Florida. There are several types of biting and stinging ants in Florida, and all of them will attack anything that disturbs their nest - whether the disturbance was intentional or not.
Removing ants from your Gainesville lawn is as much about safety as it is about aesthetics. While they can do all of the damage of less-dangerous ants, stinging ants have the added threat of physically harming people and pets.
Ants prefer lawns that are struggling and patchy, so you generally don't see significant ant issues in strong healthy lawns. However, ants don't eat grass and generally aren't lawn-damaging insects. That's why the first step in controlling them is:
1. Take Good Care of Your Lawn
Although your lawn may be too infiltrated and need a solution that offers quicker results, it's important to know that the first step to a lawn with fewer ants is simply good lawn maintenance practices. Mow the lawn on your mower's highest setting. Water the lawn to avoid drought stress. Fertilize and treat to prevent chinch bug damage (which also helps to prevent most ant species). These 3 things will keep the ants out of your lawn better than any other post-infestation treatment or bait on the market. (Side benefit, you'll have a great looking lawn, too!)
2. A Natural Home Remedy for Ant Control in your Lawn
Don't believe the hype about using grits to control lawn ants. Lyle Buss, in the insect identification lab of the Entomology and Nematology Department at UF, said the idea that grits can be fed to fire ants to kill them is not true.
“The rumor is that they eat the grits, which expand in their gut and make them explode. However, the workers don’t actually eat the grits because they aren’t able to eat solid food. They feed solid food to the ant larvae, which are able to digest it,” Buss said.
An IFAS publication, “Managing Fire Ants in Urban Areas,” states that a home remedy for treating ant mounds is to pour about three gallons of hot or near boiling water on the mound when a number of ants are on the surface, such as on a cool, sunny morning or right after heavy rainfall, which should eliminate about 60 percent of the mounds treated. This will need to be done several times for full control, though.
3. Local Garden Store Solutions
If you still aren't ready to call a professional Ant Pest Control Service after the home remedy, then you will need to visit your local home improvement store. Sometimes home remedies work great, and other times the lawn pest infestation is simply too large. At most home improvement stores, you can pick up anything from full lawn insecticide treatments (broad species control from chinch bugs to ants) to specific lawn insect treatments (like fire ant bait).
The biggest key to your success is following the label thoroughly. Some require 2-3 applications over several weeks, some will require a lawn fertilizer spreader to get the proper rate of the product down, and some will need to be watered in after the application. Whatever the instructions, follow them precisely - because we don't want you to join the number of calls we get where the homeowner has over-treated their lawn furthering the damage, then requiring a new lawn installation.
Once the lawn ants are gone, practicing proper Gainesville lawn maintenance should keep your lawn healthy and stress-free. The secret to having a lawn you love really goes back to the basics of watering, fertilization, and mowing correctly. If there is any way we can help you get control of the ants in your landscape, please fill out the form above or call us at (352) 378-5296. We look forward to the opportunity to serve you.