Ants are harmless pests however they can cause significant damage to your lawn health and unsightly damage to your lawn with their mound-building, we are going to show you how to get rid of ants from your lawn.
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Last update on 2024-11-19 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Lawn ants are more frequent in the hot summer months and tend to but not exclusively be more common in unhealthy lawns, lawn ants can pose hazards with the mounds they build from foot traffic.
There are a few different ways to getting rid of the ants from your lawn, they can be problematic clearing them from your lawn but we are going to cover a few different methods below.
Will ant killer kill my lawn?
You have to be careful when you select an ant killer that you also won’t be killing your grass at the same time as clearing the ants. Some of the chemicals in an ant killer will also destroy your grass giving you an extra problem in having to fix your lawn.
Use ant baits
If you don’t have children or animals that use your yard then ant baits can be a really good method, ant baits are a good first choice as you don’t have to put chemicals onto your lawn and this eradicates the extra problem of destroying your lawn as well.
You do need to put a few baits down to make sure that you get all the ants as you don’t want to miss any ants and have them move to another part of your garden.
Ant bait comes with a spike that you place in the ground around where you see the ants they are attracted to these and take the bait that is a slow-release poison they take this back to their nest(s) and feed the colony taking out the ants you see and the ones you don’t.
Our recommendation when it comes to ant bait is to use a repeatable brand and one with a history of working and we have found that the best ones are Terro Outdoor Liquid Ant Baits that you can buy from Amazon have a great success rate.
Rake the ant mounts
This one sounds far too simple but it can work, the idea behind this is that the ants like their ant mounts to get hard (in the summer this doesn’t take long) and dry.
If you rake the mounds and move the soil around this will keep the soil moist, it will also disturb the ant runs underground and the hope is that the ants will move on where they won’t be disturbed.
This method seems to simple but it can work but does take some precedence as the ants will rebuild their mound and it can become a battle but after some time the ants should move on.
Soap and water to rid ants
Again something that sounds a little too simple but can work, spray the soapy water in and around the ant mounds this will make it very hard for the ants to live as you are dampening their nests and the soap makes it an unpleasant place to live for the ants.
If you are going to try this method then use an eco-friendly soap this will be better for the environment and your grass, worth noting also is to use warm water not hot at hot water can kill the grass.
Diatomaceous earth ant killer
This may well be one of the most popular forms of getting rid of ants, how this works is that you spread this around were you have the ant problem and the ants eat the powder.
What then happens is that it dehydrates the ants from within killing any ants that eat any of the powder. The reason why this works so well is that it’s a slow-release and the ants have the time to take the powder back into the nest taking out all the other ants that work within the nest and don’t come above ground.
What you want to look for is a repeatable brand and a product that has a record of working we have found that Safer Insect Killer that you can get on Amazon it has lots of positive feedback from people who have used it and great success.
Vinegar to kill ants
Mixing vinegar with water and then pouring it into the ant nest will kill the ants on contact as the ants cannot tolerate low pH that vinegar compound is.
Should I call in the experts?
If you have tried some of the above methods and the ants are not getting the message then there is only one option and that is to call the experts. They are more than likely to use a method that we have listed above they should be able to pick the best one from experience that will work the first time.
What is your recommendation
My recommendation is if you want a method that is going to have a high success rate then I recommend that you take the Diatomaceous earth ant killer method this to me has the not only for me but others has a great success rate.
There is a slight problem with this method that you need to spread the powder over your grass and despite it shouldn’t harm your grass it can harm other small insects that call the grass home and help keep the grass healthy.
For this reason, people choose to use the ant baits as this will only target the ants and will have very little effect on your lawn apart from the small spikes that you put into the lawn but this will have little effect as they are only small
Last steps to take
The last step to take is to stop encouraging ants into your lawn you can do this by removing any objects that can attract ants.
Compost piles, bins and organic waste on or near your lawn will attract ants to the lawn, also ants will normally only make a home in unhealthy lawns so keeping your lawn healthy is best practice to deter ants from your lawn.
To keep your lawn healthy regular lawn mowing and a fertilizer regime will keep the grass in tip-top condition.
We hope this helps you eradicate the ants from your lawn if you have any tips or trick then leave a comment below as we aim to help others as best as we can.