Garden ants eat other bugs and clean up the area like garden spiders do. However, if they invade the irises I stir them up a bit and they move on. Fire ants are another matter.... they like taking bites out of me. When it was very cold last winter and sleet was falling I took my spade out and chopped deeply into the ground where they were mounded over. I left the spade cut open to the winter weather. They did not return this spring. This is the first summer in ten years I have not battled fire ants all summer.
