do ants eat flowers?

this year i have a lot of flowers in pots and baskets and i know this may sound strange but it's like they're melting!!!i swear they were fine one week and now they're all sticky and tacky and kinda moulded together. this sounds like a post from the looney bin but it's true and its driving me mad!well madder...

i have snail pellets down and the only other things that are around are ants. therefore does anyone know if ants eat plants and flowers or does this sound like a fungal infection.

help!!!!

Re: do ants eat flowers?????

No ants don't eat flowers but what they do is harvest greenfly i.e. they carry green fly to your plants and create their own little farm. The greenfly (which can be black, white etc) produce a sticky, honey like substance and it is this the ants live on. Sounds like your plants are badly infected so you might have to spray with a proprietory green fly killer. Check the underside of the leaves for pests.

The only other thing I can think of is mildew which is a fungus but this is not usually tacky. Its easy for plants closely packed in baskets etc. to develop a fungus especially when it is humid. One other thing is over watering...loving the plants to death. They recommend you water baskets frequently and this is correct but you should always check that they actually need it.

Hope this helps.

Re: do ants eat flowers?????

hi liteweight
just checked and negative for any kind of colour fly!! i had greenflies on roses before and managed to kill them off. so the mystery continues. my friend thought it might be this humid weather is affecting them and maybe caused some infection in the soil in the pots..... i just don't know...

Re: do ants eat flowers?????

Maybe they are actually melting? Are they real or artificial flowers?

Brendan

Re: do ants eat flowers?????

Brendan said:

Maybe they are actually melting? Are they real or artificial flowers?

Brendan

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LOL. Just reminded me of my neighbour. We both used to grow Easter flowering cactus. Mine was bigger and other neighbours always admired the abundance of flowers. These only lasted a few days and then fell (still looked perfect). Thought my next door neighbour looked peeved any time my plant was mentioned but was new in the area at the time and didn't realise how competitive this neighbour was, until... one day her young daughter complained to me that she hadn't had her lunch yet because Mummy was too busy 'super glueing' the fallen flowers back onto her cactus!!

The thing is that I 'd only gotten the plant...inherited it from my mother in law so its prolific flowering had nothing to do with me!!!

Hi Speedy,

Greenfly may have left but damage is left behind. Does the soil smell? If so it's probably a soil born fungus. Throw the lot out or water the soil with fungicide, feed the plants and see if they recover.

Try gently tugging on one of the plants. If it comes out of the soil easily, then you may have the dreaded vine weevil. They particularly love fuschias and roses. There is a solution you can water the soil with but if it is them and the damage to roots is severe then its probably too late and you should throw the plants and the soil out. These eat the roots at the base of the stem and the plant can't survive. If you suspect you have them in any pot then get rid as when they mature they crawl out to destroy all around them. The adult leaves U shaped notches in leaves but they sometimes don't eat where they lay! The grubs are the things that do the real damage.

no just went out and tugged at the plants but nothing budged. there are definitely spores on the soil. there are no problems with the leaves, they're perfect. i've sprayed with a fungicide so i'll see how i get on with that.

If there are spores then its definitely a fungus. Don't forget to water the soil with a fungicide.

thanks again liteweight for all your help.

ps your neighbour sounds mental but i'm sure my neighbours must think i'm a lunatic too out inspecting flowers at 8 in the morning!!

speedy said:

i'm sure my neighbours must think i'm a lunatic too out inspecting flowers at 8 in the morning!!

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If you find yourself out there, armed with a glue gun......it's time to worry!!!!