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Nobody likes lawn grubs but how to get rid of them?
Chances are, if you’ve never had lawn grubs you won’t bother reading this.
I never cared about them. I’d heard about them; heard that your grass will just pull right up if you have them.
With all the miles (it felt like it) of sod I’ve cut and pulled up in my yard to make beds for bushes and flowers etc, I often wished for grubs.
There is a saying a wiser person than me said once…”be careful what you wish for”.
I got the lawn grubs. I DID NOT fall into a boatload of money though and I wished for that a LOT more than grubs. Whatever, back to the issue at hand.
This is a lawn grub...
Ewwww!
We call them Yucky Bugs in our house. When we discovered them last summer as I pulled back a brown section of grass that had been kept wet by a slip and slide for a few days in the hot sun (makes for PRIME real estate for a grub) my 8 year old son would pick them up with the trowel and toss them into the street. It kept him busy for an hour or so and the robins enjoyed it too.
Lawn grubs occur in most parts of the United States. They are immature Japanese and June bug beetles.
The eggs are laid in late summer and the larvae begin feeding on the roots of grass. They go down deeper in the soil for the winter and in late spring to midsummer of the next year they climb closer to the surface and begin feeding once again , gain most of their size and turn into adults.
It is when the larvae are closest to the surface that a lawn insect control should be applied. The fact is, that chemicals for grub control are most effective, that is, truly eliminate the larvae, when the larvae are small in the late summer and early fall. They are much more difficult to kill off when they are of a more substantial size after having gone through a winter underground.
The chemical lawn insect control program can involve Imidacloprid which is the active ingredient in many popular grub control products.
It is best applied in late summer to early fall to catch the bugs in that early stage. It needs to be thoroughly watered in to be effective.
You may have some grub damage already occurring by the time you put this down, but next year, you should be grub-free.
Trichlorfon or Dylox as it is marketed as, can be applied when you begin to see the lawn browning. It will immediately kill the grubs but won’t necessarily keep them from coming back.
As most chemicals applied in the environment do, these lawn insect controls have a downside. They also kill earthworms that are a vital part of your lawn’s health. Birds that may feed on the grubs or worms can also be adversely affected.
There are 2 more earth friendly alternatives that work.
Nematodes are very small worm like creatures that invade the body of the grub and kill them. They are effective and can be bought through catalog companies. They are shipped usually on a sponge (can’t see them) which is kept cool in your refrigerator until you are ready to use them. You will soak the sponge in a bucket of water to get them off, and then use a sprayer to spray them onto your lawn.
These too, should be applied in late summer and also late in the day,(they don’t like the sun) and be watered well into the ground immediately. They are quick, relatively cheap and don’t hurt anything but Yucky Bugs aka grubs.
The other option is Milky Spore. This is a bacteria that will infect the grubs and be passed through the population virtually eliminating it. You can get Milky Spore powder here. It takes about three years to kill them all off, however.
On top that, you really need to not kill off any by another means since Milky Spore works by infecting a large population. Again though, it harms only the lawn grubs.
I had several canna plants in my yard for a few years before the grubs invaded. After a year or two, I noticed the Japanese Beetles loved them so much, I would often find 10 or more on a leaf. They would eat the leaves down to nothing. It was one of these years that I got the grubs in my lawn. They also like grapes and crepe myrtles and other ornamental plants. I have since given my cannas away and the beetles don’t come around as much anymore. Maybe the grubs will be gone too.
The beetles will lay their eggs in sunny, moist areas of your lawn in July and August. If you’ve noticed a lot of them in your yard, letting the grass naturally go dormant late in the summer is a good way to keep them away.
Ewwww!
