No seriously, I tipped over the pot thinking I could knock out a small hill of fire ants only to find thousands and thousands of them everywhere. It’s been over an hour and they’re still streaming out. They’re in the entirety of the pot and I’ve only been able to safely remove 60% of the soil. I did pour some spinosad. Is it naive of me to hope they’ll just go home?
by florals4ever
9 Comments
This is their home. They’ll adjust. I recommend as much boiling water as you can carry and then do it again and again and again. Ants are the one thing I can’t stand taking over a garden pot.
The last thing one should be doing is saving fire ants! They’re not native and have decimated our native ant, reptile, and quail populations. Like u/crushingdandelions mentioned- boiling water and I might add- no mercy!
Buy fire ant killer to sprinkle on them/the mounds!
This is exactly why I always re-pot anything I am taking into the house for the winter months. Ask me how I learned this lesson…
My favorite way to get rid of fire ants is to create a solution of concentrated orange oil and dawn dish soap. I get the [Medina Agricultural](https://medinaag.com/product/orange-oil/) one from the nursery. Put about 2-4 capfuls per gallon of water with a few drops of dawn. Then drench the soil with it. And when I say drench, I mean flood the nest and the entire area! Don’t be shy. It’s their Noah’s ark type flood.
For small infestations I catch early, one drenching is enough. For larger nests I’ll repeat the next day. The worst was three days. But I’ve never had to do more than that. It’s best to do in the early mornings or evenings since that’s when they are more active.
I learned this while volunteering at Boggy Creek Farm. This method is is safe if you’re growing edibles.
Use amdro, it’s targeted and kills only ants
Move the pot and keep watering it. They’ll move out. It doesn’t need to be boiling water. Just moving the pot everyday will piss them off enough to move out.
Before the fire ants took over, spring 2025. Rosa ‘Princess Alexandra of Kent’
https://preview.redd.it/axd6qux9krwf1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=970deb8ae1fb4e797a10ecd630fdc7a6809fd046
Another somewhat less toxic way to get rid of. Soak some cotton balls in warm water mixture with a 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of borax. Once the cotton balls absorb the mixture (you can swirl them around in it to get them coated) – place them out in the mound. They are attracted to the sugar and track the borax back to the queen. Kills the colony. Some of those buggers are deep so boiling water will only get so many.