Are Ants Bad For Mulch?

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If you’ve laid down mulch recently and noticed a sudden increase in ants in your garden, you might wonder if the ants will harm your garden, your mulch, the soil, etc. Namely, the mulch you just worked to put down.

Ants don’t damage organic mulch by tunneling, but they may use the organic material for their nests and speed up the decomposition process by bringing in certain fungi and microorganisms. They won’t touch pungent or non-organic mulch.

Keep reading to learn more about the effects of ants in your garden, your mulch, and how you can get rid of them if they are a nuisance.

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Are Live Ants Bad to Find in Mulch?

Do ants damage crops and flower beds? The damage that ants cause isn’t actually on your plants. Normally. Carpenter ants can wreak havoc with wood chips and wooden frames, while fire ants will eat your vegetables and bite you if you get too close.

Most ants, though, are helpful. The black garden ant, for example, will eat many of the plant pests that wreak havoc on your garden. Other ants, like the tree ants and plant ants, while they might look like they are eating your plants, are just consuming the dew on the plants rather than the plants themselves.

If ants get into your garden’s soil early, they might transfer seedlings to other areas of their nest. The real hassle comes when ants, any kind of ant, create a partnership with aphids or scales. Aphids are as attracted to mulch beds as ants are, but they do far more damage than ants.

The real problem with having ants around at the same time as aphids is the fact that the ants will protect the aphids from their natural predators, i.e. ladybugs, earwigs, etc. they will help the aphids by moving them to new spots on the plants, removing fungal spores that would have killed them, and even protecting aphid eggs so that they hatch.

Why do they protect these pests? Because as aphids eat and ruin your precious plants, they will secrete a sugary liquid called “honeydew” from their backsides that the ants enjoy and use for quick energy.

Does Mulch Attract Ants?

If you are noticing a sudden increase in the local ant population around your mulch beds, you, unfortunately, aren’t just more aware of them. Your organic mulch will attract ants because they actively look for organic matter. Mulch beds are often the hunting grounds of ants.

Ants have a very sensitive sense of “smell” in that they are able to detect subtle chemicals, natural or lab-made. Ants, such as carpenter ants, are able to detect the smell of organic mulch, namely wood chips.

Organic mulch is good in many ways, even as it decomposes, but when it does decompose, it will attract aphids and scales, which are more of a problem than ants.

How to Remove Ants in Mulch

There are several ways to get rid of ants that have rudely invaded your mulch. A few include,

Using insecticides
Applying neem oil

Boiling water
Making sweet traps
Planting bug-repelling plants

Spreading nematodes
Laying down orange peels
Using citrus oil

Insecticides are one option, but we understand that you might want to try natural means of getting rid of ants before you resort to chemicals. If you do opt for an insecticide, there are garden insect sprays such as the Garden Safe brand, which uses plant extracts and are usually good to use on edible gardens and ornamentals. Just read the label first.

Using nematodes is extremely effective against ants unless you are dealing with fire ants. Nematodes are often used to take care of fleas, termites, caterpillars, and ants. These parasitic worms will attach themselves to mobile insects and either inject their bodies with deadly bacteria or go inside them and start feeding on them immediately.

Traps are pretty standard. You would typically offer something sweet or something else desirable, like peanut butter mixed with sugar, and mix borax powder within to poison the ants. You can stuff the peanut butter into plastic straws or take several small saucers of table sugar mixed with the borax and some warm water and place them in the garden.

Certain bug-repellant plants will help keep ants away from your mulch beds, even if they come in your mulch bags. Some of these plants include,

Catnip
Feverfew

Lavender
Marigolds
Herbs (i.e. rosemary, thyme, mint, etc.)

Tansy
Garlic

In other words, you want to plant things that have potent smells. Citronella geranium may also work, but they are usually bought to repel mosquitoes. Nevertheless, it might be worth a try.

Speaking of citronella, you can use the peels of oranges or citrus oil to keep ants out. It may work the same way planting smelly plants works. It’s also an inexpensive solution. You would combine citrus oil with some dish soap and spray it all over your mulch. Just be sure to use non-toxic soap.

Is There Ant-Resistant Mulch?

There is ant-resistant mulch. We’ve talked about how ants can’t stand aromatic plants, but the same is true with mulch. Certain trees are very aromatic; their bark or wood chips will help keep ants out of the mulch beds or drive them out. Aromatic trees include

Cedar

Cypress

Besides these, you could also choose non-organic mulch for your beds instead. Now, “non-organic” isn’t necessarily accurate because, besides rubber chips, that term can also include rocks.

In other words, anything that doesn’t decompose would certainly work for you since aphids (the major problem) are attracted to the decomposing scents of the natural mulches.

Are Ants Good for Soil?

The funny thing about ants is that although you don’t want them in your mulch while your garden grows, they might not be as bad as soil prep.

we know we’ve been talking about the multitude of reasons why you would want to get ants out of your mulch as quickly as possible and the number of ways you can get them out, but they can prove to be useful in some cases.

Traditionally, ants have been useful in aerating the soil you intend to plant your garden through their expansive tunnels. When they make your soil their home, they carry water, add oxygen, and bring in nutrients through organic matter like their own cemetery or the insects and plant matter they hunted and brought in.

Through their activity, they speed up the decomposition of the natural matter that they bring in and the organic matter in your soil already. And as we mentioned before, some ants can be beneficial to your garden by hunting other garden pests.

So how do you get rid of ants when your compost is rich and healthy? You can usually let them know they need to vacate by soaking the soil. Soapy water has been recommended for covering the surface of the soil. You would need to soak the soil anyway and turn the soil to make good compost, so the ants shouldn’t be an issue.

In Sum

So, in terms of being bad for mulch, ants may speed up the decomposition process, but for the most part, they don’t hurt your mulch. Most of them won’t even hurt your garden. They’ll just instigate the worst garden pest in existence. You could try the trick in this video if you want to control both ants and aphids.

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