Ominous Development

When we cut down the monster Eugenia hedge on the north side of our house, we realized that the chain link fence between our house and the neighbors was kind of ugly, so Cindy decided to plant something to dress it up a bit.

Pretty Flowers

The plant she chose was a vine called Thunbergia, or Black Eyed Susan Vine.  It had pretty flowers, it grew fast and it's definitely prettier than the fence.  However, after the vine had become established, it began to show a more sinister side; it soon became apparent that the vine had designs on world domination.

Creeping Toward The House

We watched as it rapidly spread out of the flower bed, across the sidewalk and crept toward the house.  Not wanting our house to disappear beneath the vine, Cindy has chopped it back numerous times, but it keeps creeping back.

However, the other day, she discovered an even more disturbing development.  She went out to check the hummingbird feeder at the end of the fence and found it swarming with Argentine Ants devouring the sugared hummingbird food.  That was odd, since we have a water baffle between the feeder and the hook it hangs from and there was only one dead ant floating in the water.

Hummingbird Feeder

However, it soon became clear that the ants had evaded the baffle by marching across a tendril of the Thunbergia that had snaked across to the feeder, providing a convenient highway for the ants.

These ants love sweets and are always on the search for food sources.  Since they are prolific and have no natural predators in Southern California, they are pretty much everywhere and it takes great diligence to keep them out of the house, particularly in dry weather, when they're in search of water.  Or rainy weather when their nests are flooded.  Or any other time.

Argentine Ants are enough of a nuisance by themselves, but when they start teaming up with the Thunbergia?  Look out, world.

The Ants Are Marching...

Actually, the ants are always marching here in San Diego, just usually not in our kitchen.  We were out of the house most of the day yesterday and when we got back, Cindy was occupied with the new design for the back yard.  So when she finally did go into the kitchen, she was shocked to discover the wall beside the microwave swarming with ants.  Worse yet, the trail of ants led up the wall into the cupboard.

We spent a frantic hour pulling out boxes of cereal and crackers, tossing those that the ants had gotten into and putting the rest into resealable plastic bags.  We also kept mopping up the ants with a mixture of vinegar and water, and finally just vinegar when we ran out of the mixture.  The ant bodies were stacking up by the hundreds, but they just kept coming.  We finally put a couple of ant baits out, one in the cupboard and one taped to the wall--you have to put it in their path or they won't eat it, but if they do eat it, they will carry it back to the nest and it will eventually kill the rest of the ants in the nest.

Our "shop chic" faucet handle

But I'm afraid that definitely puts us into the redneck category, what with the ant bait taped to the wall above the microwave, right next to the sink with our vice grip faucet handle.  We called the vice grip handle "shop chic";  some of our friends think it's funny and practical, but others have called it "redneck" because of the rubber band on the vice grips.  It may look odd, but it works for us.

The ants we're fighting are the notorious Argentine ants that have invaded much of Southern California.  Unlike other ant species, or even the Argentine ants in their native Argentina, those in California are not genetically diverse and consequently do not fight one another, recognizing ants from other nests as fellow members of one giant colony.

The nests also may contain multiple queens, making them "egg laying machines" that contribute to the proliferation of the species.  It also means that if you kill one queen, the nest doesn't necessarily die.  And if the nest does die, more Argentine ants just move into the empty space in short order.  Sigh.