ants.

[maggie01]

There was a piece of roofing felt blown onto the garden and underneath it were a load of ants. They didn't look like ordinary ants. The were rounded like the red ants but these are black.
What is the best way to get rid of them. Ant powder doesn't seem to do much

[Mosaic]

Several kettles of freshly boiled water, poured liberally over the area.

[boxtops]

Yes, that's our usual tactic.

[jomifl]

Remove the felt, the ants will go away. If you are worried by ants in your garden then get a top floor flat. Ants are some of the most numerous insects in the world and you probably have several million of dozens of different species in your garden, live and let live. What do you think eats all the dead stuff?

[jomifl]

and what do you think will eat the dead ants?

[EvianBaby]

I would use kettles of boiling water.

I'm very surprised others here would also do that though.

[Mosaic]

Why?

[maggie01]

I do live and let live but my grandkids do not want ants crawling over them in the garden. If the ants had the sense to live somewhere where we do not sit then they would be free to get on with their lives instead of being a nuisance to ours. :)

[starone]

They don't like cucumber although I can't see you surrounding yourself with bits of cucumber. Perhaps just in the places you don't want them to be.

[sidkid]

If you could kill all the ants in your garden (difficult) and all the ants in your neighbour's garden (more difficult) and all the ants in your neighbour's neighbour's gardens (very difficult) then you would be ant-free......for a while....

[woofgang]

I agree, take the felt away and the ants will vanish. My rule is that I don.t do anything about ants unless they start turning up in the house. The recent very wet weather will have decimated the ant population anyway.

[sidkid]

I believe that if you destroy an ants nest it will be replaced by several new nests. This is because the resident ants will attack and kill new Queen ants before they have chance to establish a nest. Kill the residents and you will create ant chaos!

[ladybirder]

Leave them alone they're not harming anybody.