The Fire Ant Saga

Well, I repotted the tree that had fireants in it. This tree is two years old and I just haven’t had time to put it in the ground yet. It’s also in a pot because it came damaged with the box opened and the roots smashed by UPS. It really struggled last year, it still may not make it.

I noticed the fire ants in a big mound, off of my back porch, over the winter. I didn’t try and kill them because I had a million other things to do. Then I got covid and didn’t water my pots for two weeks. If you want a pot of fire ants, just let the soil in the pot dry out. It’s the “If you accidentally build it, they will come” conundrum.

I’ve never had fire ants in the pots that I was actively growing something in. But I’m also very behind with my spring chores, because I got so incredibly sick. (Like, I thought I might die, sick. But, thankfully that’s over, even though I’m still blowing my nose and coughing a bit.)

So this is what I did: I loosened the soil with a shovel, so that I could pull the rootball out. (I was already making the ants mad at this point.) I tipped the pot over and pulled the rootball out, by carefully pulling on the trunk. This is not a good way to remove a plant from a pot, but I wasn’t going to get close to the foaming, angry ants.

Then I turned my watering hose on as high as it would go, and used the most intense spray I could use, with my hose end sprayer.

I kept my distance. These guys were falling out in sheets, from the pot, they were swarming so viciously!

I started spraying the soil. Slowly but surely: I made progress on removing the soil from the roots. It took about thirty minutes to finish. It’s in the low 60s today, so: I was pretty cold with the mist from the hose soaking me. I didn’t get all of the soil out, but I did my best.

Is the queen still in the rootball? Who knows. Maybe. Maybe they evacuated her with all of the eggs. Does it matter if she’s still in there? I don’t think so. I put poison on the ground around pot, several days ago. Today, I threw that same “amdro quick kill”, all over the areas that had ants washed out from the pot and then put poison on the ground around the rest of my pots on that side of the yard.

As long as I keep the pots watered the ants will find a different area where they are less disturbed and drier.

Did I get stung? Yep. But only on my hand (that was holding the hose) and my foot. I didn’t notice the ant on my foot until I was inside. Little buggar. But: for messing with an entire mound and picking up the plant and repotting it, only two stings is pretty much a miracle!

So we’ll see how this goes. If they try and set up shop in another pot I’m going to be really pissed. I hate fire ants and this method was very wasteful with water, plus: I have other things I need to be doing right now. However, I saved a sixty dollar tree, so… there’s that.

Update. The queen was still in there. I used amdro bait. I’m so sad that I didn’t get enough off of the roots to reclaim the pot without chemicals. Next time, fire ants: I’ll get you, next time!

Meet you out in the garden… sans fire ants!

Crazy Green Thumbs