How to spray peonies to protect against ants?

Admiring the lush flowering in the garden, we suddenly notice how the ants are brazenly managing the peonies. How to process plants from uninvited guests? Or is there no harm from them? It turns out, like all predators, ants play their role of orderlies, destroying caterpillars, but, nevertheless, cause significant harm to plants.

Reasons for the appearance of ants on buds

Ants feed on fast carbohydrates, which are obtained from honeydew and plants. They are attracted by the sweet nectar produced by peonies that have not yet blossomed. Whole ant colonies can often be found near large bushes of these plants or right in the rhizomes. As soon as the peonies begin to form buds, the ants extract the sweet liquid. The nectar is concentrated in the petals and sepals of flowers, this is where insects rush.

Do ants harm flowers?

Not all owners of gardens with luxurious peonies tend to blame the ants and drive them out of the site. Many people believe that these organized insects do not bring much harm. They simply feast on nectar, crawling along the surface of the buds. There are opinions that thanks to ants, peony flowers bloom faster. In search of nectar, ants gnaw through the sticky film on the buds, helping them to open. Perhaps the colonies in such gardens are few or there are other food sources for their inhabitants.

Most gardeners systematically get rid of ants and have good reasons for this.

• A large number of ants on the buds leads to the fact that they can dry out without having time to bloom, or bloom poorly and much later.
• In search of food, insects gnaw through petals and sepals, suck nectar out of them, so the blossoming flower is lopsided, irregular in shape, with ugly holes.
• Ants can become carriers of fungal diseases by infecting plants.

If ants are seen on flowering peonies, they will cause less damage to the plant.

How to protect peonies?

Even shaking the ants off the bush every day will not help prevent damage to the buds. Usually they take more decisive actions - with the help of insecticides, baits or protecting peonies from ants with folk remedies.

Chemical methods

When spraying peony bushes, you must carefully study the instructions for the drug and follow safety rules. It is better to work with chemicals in the morning or in the evening - this way, you can protect the bees from contact with the poison.

• Peony bushes are treated with any broad-spectrum insecticide - for example, "Inta-Vir", "Decis", "Aktara" are suitable.
• Targeted drugs are used to fight ants on peony buds: Muravyin, Anteater, Muratsid, Fenaxin, Expel. With the same means, they cultivate the land near a bush or an anthill.
• Anti-ant drugs in the form of a gel "Clean House", "Great Warrior" or others lubricate the stems of peonies with buds.

Plants should be processed in the phase of small buds, the size of a pea.

Using baits or traps

Having seen a lot of ants near the bush, you need to follow them and find an anthill. If insects live right at the rhizome, they are removed with poison or sweet bait-feeding is constantly used to distract from flowers. Remember: a large anthill can destroy a plant.

• Of the poisonous baits, the most effective traps are Raptor and Kombat. They are specially designed for ants, larger insects will remain intact.
• They also make homemade baits based on honey, water and boric acid, which is destructive for ants. The ratio of 10: 10: 1 is adhered to (sugar syrup or jam is also used instead of honey). The baits are placed on cardboard or lids and laid out near the anthill.

From the piggy bank of folk experience

Gardeners use plants that smell bad to ants. Insects often bypass the places where such herbs are located.

• You can plant parsley, marigolds near the peonies, mint, tansy, wormwood.
• The most famous method is to spray the stems and buds of peonies with a daily infusion of garlic. To do this, grind 30-70 g of garlic, rub a piece of laundry soap (5-10 g) on ​​a grater and dilute these components in 1 liter of warm water.
• There are tips to rub the stems of peonies with cloves of garlic or to spread the buds with infusion with a brush.
• The buds are sprayed with an infusion of bay leaves.
• The ground around the bushes is powdered with wood ash.
• The soil around the peonies is sprinkled with tobacco dust, the bushes are sprayed with infusion of half-smoked cigarettes.
• A solution of household or tar soap, as well as a diluted dishwashing detergent, is used to treat plants.
• A rag dipped in kerosene is placed on the soil around the bush.

Installation of an obstacle

You can try making a trap that will keep the ants out of the sweet buds. For this, a round hole is made in a sheet of thick cardboard, the diameter of which is equal to the volume of the bush at a height of 20-30 cm from the ground. From below, the cardboard is smeared with a sticky substance, such as petroleum jelly. To set a trap on a bush, you will have to cut the leaf on one side. When installing the sheet, make sure that there are no cracks on it through which the ants could crawl up.

Ants do harm the beauty of the peony flower. If the appearance of the flower basket is important for the gardener, insects will have to be removed from the bushes. It is also necessary to ensure that there is no anthill under the rhizomes.