Dogs, (Fire?) Ants and Gardening

[mmaestro]

My wife and I bought a new house up in the heights just after Christmas. Well, it's plant and bug season again, and we've got a few different questions for the wise amongst you who've been living in this climate longer than us

Comments

[beaddreamer]

The ants most likely are not fire ants. Are they aggressive? There are red ants in Abq. and they are big, red, and they do bite, but they're not aggressive. Unless it's a HUGE pile of them, or the yard is VERY tiny, there shouldn't be a problem with a dog and them co-existing. I grew up with dogs, and ants. ;) I wouldn't worry about an exterminator unless it becomes a problem with the dog. Good luck!

[rainswolf]

I've had black ants and the stuff they sell at the store doesn't do anything. Nor do any of the "natural" recommendations on the internet (boiling water, cinnamon, chalk, etc.) I'd imagine if the red ants you have would bite humans then they would bite dogs. If you don't have dogs or cats now, you could put some boric acid and honey water in some disposable bowls around to try to kill the ant colonies. If you do this, maybe put it where the neighbors cats can't get into it either since it can hurt them too. I have a friend who tried this method and eradicated her colonies. There should be instructions on the internet with more specific recipes.

[teencraft]

How do you get rid of those black ants?

[sparkofcreation]

I don't know if they're the same type, but we just put out regular old ant traps and they worked fine. Actually we didn't know we even had black ants until we bought the traps; we'd only seen the red ones, put out the traps for them, and all of a sudden there were a billion black ones going for the traps (but the red ants won't go near them).

[rainswolf]

To be quite honest, I mostly flood them which keeps them away for about 3 days or act annoyed and pray and then when autumn comes they disappear on their own....

WHen they start the trails in the backyard and into the kitchen I get particularly annoyed but when they just stay outside then I ignore them.

[elegantelbow]

The small black ants are sometimes called "sugar ants" or "grease ants". I've never had a problem with them biting (though they do get a bit pesky once they start a colony). The bigger ants are probably not fire ants. I've never seen fire ants here.

I recommend Geary's Pest Control -- 270-9620. I call them for all my bug problems. They're reliable, honest, and reasonably priced.

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed contractor. This is not construction advice
Where is the dry-rot? If it's not in a structural area, you maybe could leave it alone. The bigger question is where is the water source that caused it. If there's still water leaking there (from pipes or from a roof) you could be at risk for attracting termites or developing a mold problem.
I am not a licensed contractor. This was not construction advice

[sparkofcreation]

mmaestro's wife here.

The house is U-shaped and one leg of the U is the garage. The dry rot is on the wood frame at each side of the garage door (not the door itself, but the frame), near the ground. No idea where the water could be coming from, the roof is in great shape and while there is one point it drains off at more heavily, that's in the center of the garage door, not near the edge of it. And since it's at the front of the garage, it's at least 15 feet from the nearest pipes.

The problem is the damn dry rot/termite inspector actually told us to our face when he did the inspection that there were "no termites or dry rot at all, anywhere" but as mmaestro said, we didn't get his written report until closing and we didn't read it until a month later.

[elegantelbow]

The dry rot is on the wood frame at each side of the garage door (not the door itself, but the frame), near the ground.

It sounds like that might be water seeping under the garage door during heavy rains. The framing around the garage door is typically structural, so you definitely have reason to be concerned. However, don't be afraid -- it's not that expensive to have the wooden beams replaced and it's definitely do-able. Sadly, I don't currently have a contractor that I can recommend from personal experience for wall work. (My wall guy was skeezy and irritating and my walls aren't straight because of him.)

The problem is the damn dry rot/termite inspector actually told us to our face when he did the inspection that there were "no termites or dry rot at all, anywhere" but as mmaestro said, we didn't get his written report until closing and we didn't read it until a month later.That's unusual. You should have had a two-day period after the written report was faxed to your realtor in which to review and object (assuming that's

[sparkofcreation]

Oh, we did have that. Our realtor either didn't read the report or flat-out lied, but he told us that everything in it was exactly what we'd been told by the inspectors. Then he didn't give us our copy until closing.

[elegantelbow]

Oh! I meant to say something about gardening, too.

The city has rebates and free classes and a booklet on xeriscaping: http://abcwua.org/waterconservation/xericrebate.html

And Plants of the Southwest has all kinds of cool plants and seeds that are native to this city. They're not cheap, but they're definitely worth visiting. I bought a bag of native grass seed from them a few years ago -- any day now I'm going to have a low water use lawn.

[zerozander]

If want to do artificial grass in the future then I don't see a point of fixing up the yard right now. Artificial turf is very expensive. The cost adds up quick when you're talking about anything other than a small/medium sized yard. You'll want to kill whatever weeds are growing back there now. Whoever you hire to do the artificial turf will be able to level out the dirt and work around your trees or plants. Until you do go that route there is little that can be done to get rid of the mud bowl.

On second thought there is plenty you can do. You could plant some type of grass. You could throw rocks everywhere. You could xeriscape, lay bricks, vegetable garden, concrete, cement, bunch of native plants. Lots of possibilities. Why waste money now for something you would just get rid of in the future? I say kill the weeds, deal with the mud, save up money and put in your artificial turf.

[sparkofcreation]

That's the basic plan, but the front yard is already xeriscaped and we do want to spruce it up a bit. And there are *some* plants that we think aren't weeds that we'd like to save. As the one with the vision *g*, my plan is for the yard to be about 75% artificial turf/25% native plants. So we'd probably kill the weeds and try to neaten up the plants around the edges, maybe put some more in, maybe do some repair work on the patio, etc. But I mean, we don't even know what sorts of trees/plants we have, if they need to be pruned, etc. (We suspect one tree is a baby desert willow and two are mulberries, but we don't know what the other two are. We know we have three rosebushes, but being from the East Coast, we've never seen any of the other plants before.)

[elegantelbow]

Heh. If you'd like some native decorative grasses, I'm happy to let you come dig up some of mine. They get to be about 6.5' tall and they don't need an ounce of watering. But they're starting to take over my front yard. When we bought our house in 2000 there were only three of them, and now I think we've got over 25.

[sparkofcreation]

*g* I was thinking more along the lines of decorative native wildflowers like salvia, but if we want grasses, I'll bear that in mind.