Although I could not pronounce it to save my life, myrmencochory becomes the very bane of my gardening existence here in the sand box from late May until October.

Myrmencochory refers to the phenomenon of  seed dispersal by ants. Theory is, some  plants evolved to have seeds with an extra ‘food body’ on them that is attractive to the ants, who carry it down to their nest, feed the nutrients from the food body (called an elaisome) to their larvae then discard the seed itself  from the nest where it germinates and grows. This saves the seed from predation and ensures succession of the plant species. What frickin ever, to me it just means more work weeding.

Only certain plants have this symbiotic relationship with ants, I think the other million seedlings they cause are due to their constant  tunneling .In the gardens here ,everything under a few scant inches of improved soil  is sand, therefore the digging is easy. Their massive  nests have taken down entire sides of raised beds, recycled whole areas of gardens so now the sand is on top and the soil is under, and given me hundreds of hours of extra weeding.

Bill calls them “nature’s farmers” which is a better name than they derserve. I call them” milions of creepy soon to be dead crawlies” ,and do not appreciate their farming efforts at all.

All the beds here are either raised up with local rocks, or edged with them , and when they disturb an area enough to knock the rocks out of place and I have to re-place them, I enevitably get bitten by the stupid things whenI  absentmindedly kneel down and pick one up. It hurts like H-E double hockey sticks and then itches like crazy .

While I apprecaite the scientists who study such things to give us a better understanding of the world around us, I also apprecaite the scientists who work for Ortho and give us fancy  ant bait stations to kill the little suckers.  When we moved here not even one living thing greeted us in our yard upon arrival. I think the ants moved in first and started a chain of followers and interlopers  that have conspired to undermine my beautification work and thwart me at every turn.

 Maybe I am paranoid, maybe just a-noid (couldn’t resist…sorry), maybe I should be more tolerant. Sigh.