Ants Coming In From the Garden in Stanmore – What Can You Do?

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Why You Cannot Clear the Garden

• A large garden contains many nests — often dozens
• Most of them you will never see
• Treating broadly would be replaced within a season from surrounding land
• Black garden ants damage nothing and are part of a functioning garden
• They are food for green woodpeckers, which is what those birds are doing on your lawn
• So the garden is not the target. The threshold is

Where They Are Coming In

• The threshold of a back door, patio door or French doors
• A conservatory junction with the house
• Airbricks
• Mortar cracks at low level
• Around a waste or soil pipe
• Where an extension meets the original house
• Under a window frame or a failed bead of sealant
• Cable and meter box entries

Follow the trail. It goes to one place, and that place is the whole problem.

What They Are Coming In For

Almost always sugar. An ant trail into a house exists because something is rewarding it.

• Spills — juice, honey, jam, a sticky ring under a bottle
• The bin, especially the rim and lid rather than the bag
• Pet food, and a bowl left down
• Fruit, particularly anything over-ripe
• Recycling with unrinsed jars, tins or bottles
• Crumbs under the toaster or in a plinth line
• A utility or boot room with pet food or birdseed in it

Remove the reward and the trail loses its reason, whatever is happening outside.

The Two Steps That Work

Read nextHow Do You Get Rid of Ants in a Stanmore House? →

Why Bait Still Works on a Garden Nest

• Bait is carried home by the foragers and shared through the colony
• Including to the queen, which is what ends it
• So we do not need to reach the nest physically
• A nest under a patio slab, terrace or lawn can be dealt with from the trail
• Which means no lifting paving and no digging
• And it works on a nest under a neighbour's boundary too

Reducing the Pressure at the Wall

Free, and it helps on a large plot.

• Keep a clear strip of gravel or paving against the house wall rather than planting to it
• Move pots and planters away from doorways
• Cut back planting that touches the wall or overhangs a threshold
• Do not stack logs or materials against the house
• Deal with a leaking outside tap or a pooling gully
• Move compost away from the building
• Keep bins away from the back door

Aphids and Honeydew

Worth understanding, because it explains ants on plants and occasionally indoors on houseplants.

• Ants farm aphids for the honeydew they produce
• Heavy ant activity on a shrub or tree usually means aphids on it
• That is a gardening question, not a pest control one
• Dealing with the aphids reduces the ants on that plant
• It rarely has anything to do with the indoor trail
• Ants on a houseplant may mean aphids or scale on it

When It Is Worth Treating

• The trail returns after you have sealed and cleaned
• Ants are reaching stored food repeatedly
• It happens in the same place every summer
• There are multiple entry points and sealing them all is impractical
• The nest appears to be inside the structure rather than the garden

Related Questions

Should I treat the patio?

Not broadly. If a specific nest under it is feeding the indoor trail, that is what gets treated.

What about ant hills on the lawn?

Cosmetic. Brush them level on a dry day if they bother you, and leave the ants.

Will they come back next summer?

There will be ants in the garden next summer. Whether they come indoors depends on the sealing.