Coming from my slice of life to help you find more joy in yours

You can’t trust ants (they are in cahoots with the aphids!)

When I saw an aphid infestation on my willow tree, I thought to myself ‘don’t panic, there will be a biological control along soon enough’. When I saw the ants I thought the problem was solved. I was wrong.

It turns out when you see something like this:

It is a beautiful example of a symbiotic relationship, not predator and prey as I had suspected.

According to gardeningknowhow.com, it works something like this:

The aphids feed on the sap of plants and secrete a sticky substance called honeydew. This sticky stuff as it turns out, just happens to be a favourite food of ants, who will actually “milk” the aphids for it by stroking their abdomen. But the friendship doesn’t end there, oh no. The ants protect the aphids from predators and from a fungal outbreak that causes death, by removing the bodies of the infected aphids. Apparently anytime you see ants in large numbers on one of your plants or trees it’s highly likely you have a large infestation of aphids. How nice!

So instead of thinking I had a natural solution to my aphid problem, I have now to come up with a way to get rid of this ant-aphid party. Just another gardening surprise I suppose.

It has made me think though – what have you discovered about gardening which you didn’t know before?

© Sharon O’Neil. All rights reserved. Original work protected by copyright law

Sharon

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2 responses to “You can’t trust ants (they are in cahoots with the aphids!)”

  1. KenshoHomestead Avatar
    KenshoHomestead

    So many things! I knew almost nothing when I started, no gardeners where I grew up. I didn’t know there were cool season and warm season crops, for example. That’s pretty basic. But one interesting thing I noticed and then read about somewhere and I can’t remember where, was about ‘mimic’ plants, or sometimes called imposters, that come up in the garden after or along with look-alike species.

    Like Virginia Creeper with poison ivy, they very often appear together and look remarkably similar. I didn’t get wild carrot in my garden until I started planting carrots. I get entirely new species of weeds I don’t recognize every year, some of them looking so similar to other plants I don’t realize it’s not an actual volunteer, but an interloper posing as one!

    I also get ground cherries and tomatillos that come back as volunteers every year, but they rarely produce good fruit, or sometimes any fruit at all, so it makes me think the breeding must’ve been pretty intense on those crops if going back to their native state means they have nothing to offer in the way of food for people or animals, hmmm? 😁

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    1. Sharon Avatar
      Sharon

      Wow, I didn’t know this! Now I’m gonna have to go do some research. Thank you so much. Do you know the best way to get rid of my party of ants and aphids – do I bring in a bug that begins with a ‘B’ or is the alphabet thing just a coincidence?!

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