Well, no. 1 cinammon drench didn't work. Ants are still very much there and back to farming aphids. I just added another 5 litre bottle of cinnamon water (no rain forecast or last night) and quite a thick layer of 100g of dry cinammon powder to the surface around the rose base.
Next I will try cloves as I have old cloves in a jar.
I have grown a rose in this spot for ten years (on moving in). It's an odd, dry spot, but with tlc plants do well. I treat the spot as if it were a container, which is kind of is.
It is a lot of cinammon - I hope it doesn't screw with the microbiota too much. I guess that if the ants persist we will know that ants are really ok with cinammon and spices with a strong smell / taste
Clove oil works. It doesn't need screw with your microbiota as rou don't need to water it into the soil. Just find a way to keep a cotton wool ball of it dry.
Well, no, 100g of cinnamon powder didn't work - assuming the ants would vacate the real estate pretty immediately on disturbance, as they usually seem to. There is heavy rain forecast this week, so I will wait for that before trying with various clove preparations.
One lesson is that I probably should have jumped on this problem the minute I saw the ants' nest instead of leaving it a bit. If they are now very attached to the site it might harder to get them out.
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Like your front door set up.