Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi All,

We have an infestation of black ants on our two poplar trees in our back garden. Any ideas how we can get rid of them without damaging our fairly young trees.

AM

Are the ants causing any damage directly? Are they being attracted by aphids on the trees?

If there are aphids on the tree (most likely explanation) then they are more than likely to be harvesting the honeydew from them, and protecting them from being killed by predators.

If you want to remove the ants you'll have to remove the aphids!

If they're not there for the aphids, and are not causing any damage - do you really need to do anything about them?

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Happy Gardening!

Hi Alex I have put pesticide free greasebands around the trunk of my fruit tree's and it seems to work just the odd ant gets pass, the only problem I seem to have is sticky fingers!

put vaseline round the trunk of my two yr old plum tree, then booted the tree! shook the ants off, seems to of worked, not sure if the vaseline will do any harm, think not.

Ants don't climb trees or bushes for the fun of it. They are farming aphids. Greasebands sounds like a good idea - this will stop the ants climbing but if you have aphids you will still have this problem to deal with. Soft soap or chemical insecticides I guess.