I didn't have to visit the garden either to be strong enough to beat the ants. The point I was trying to make there is that the garden is the only thing the player has (other than the dragon) to gauge the strength of their party. So when they see that they're creaming the garden monsters they might be like "Hah! This is easy, I'm totally ready to move on to the next thing" when maybe they're not.
This is important, because not everyone has the time or patience to turn over every rock in search of sidequests. By making the garden creatures so weak, you run the risk of tricking someone into thinking they're ready to move on, when they're not. That's why I got burned twice.
Also, truth be told, I didn't really need the items, except for a few healing potions. A careful use of status spells and Chefuwe's double attack were enough for me to take down the ants before they could do serious damage.
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