If you mix a teaspoon of borax (cleaning section of supermarket) with 2 or 3 tablespoons of icing (confectioners) suger and put small piles of the mixture around the plants, the ants will eat it.
When they eat it and go back to their nest, a gas builds up in their gut.
Ants can't fart.
They go POP !!
Other ants then eat the gooey sugary ant guts and the process repeats itself ... POP ... POP.
The section of the ant nest that was working the area where your plants are kinda gets decimated and the ants will stay clear for several weeks - if they reappear, repeat the behavioural management process
I use this method to control ants that visit my home and it works a treat.
G.O.D.