The weather over the last week has been much better, a little bit more May like, and it's meant we've made good progress at the allotment and in the garden. One of the jobs I've been meaning to do in the greenhouse was to repot our banana plant.
By the middle of summer it makes a fine plant for the greenhouse. We've tried it outside and whilst it survives okay it only takes one windy day and the leaves are shredded to pieces. In the spring the stems are cut back and new leaves soon start to form.
I always think it deserves repotting into fresh compost each spring as it grows so rampantly through summer. The plant was moved out of the greenhouse and onto the lawn to be repotted. There's a bit more space on the lawn to tip the banana plant out of the pot and to allow some of the old compost to be removed. However, as the banana plant was eased out of the pot I wasn't expecting to find hundreds if not thousands of ants.
What really surprised me was that I hadn't seen any ant activity in the greenhouse and I wasn't expecting to find anything untoward as the rootball emerged from the tub. The ants scurried in all directions into the compost trying to protect their pupae. After watching the ants for a few minutes I decided the best thing I could do was to clear as much soil off the root as possible and hopefully most of the ants. It proved a tricky job keeping the ants at bay while the soil was knocked off the root. In the end I decided to give the root a pressure wash to clear away the last of the soil and ants.
The root split into two as I was removing the soil and after pressure washing them I was left with the two roots shown above. These have been replanted into new containers to grow on.
I'm sure the main root will be okay but I'm not so sure about the root that broke away.
I'll have to keep a close look out for other ant infestations in the greenhouse. I'm already thinking that there might be a nest in the apricot tree pot. I think the tell-tale sign is the fine soil in the saucer under the pot.
Having had a quick look online I think the ants have been enjoying the honeydew produced by aphids on the peach and apricot trees but the numbers of aphids have been vastly reduced by spraying the trees so I'm wondering what else the ants may find to eat or if there is a simple way to eradicate them from the pot.
I also made a video of repotting the banana plant and the ants nest.
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What a surprise! How yucky! It happens here, too. The best way I've found to get rid of the ants in a pot like that is to immerse the whole thing, pot, plant and all, in a large bucket of water. The ants comes streaming out carrying their pupae.
ReplyDeleteI'd thought of trying to drowned them but I'm not sure I can lift our apricot tree into a larger container. I've got my thinking cap on about how I might be able to do it. It's good to know that once I've worked out how to do it does actually works.
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