Grub Control and Lawn Aeration

Grub Control

Grubs are a major threat to your lawn. They can cause thousands of dollars in damage to a non-treated lawn. The grubs feed on grass, grass roots, and garden crops. Food seeking predators (such as moles, skunks, crows, and blackbirds) often do further damage where grubs are present. Our Grub Management Program can control these potentially devastating insects.

• Spring – Insecticide treatment
• Late Summer – Insecticide treatment

It’s late summer and your once lush lawn may now be looking wilted and brown. While the solution could be as simple as a good watering to bring your lawn back to life, it could be that there are destructive insects feeding on your grass roots.

About an inch long and c-shaped with white bodies and brown or yellow heads, lawn grubs are the adolescent phase of a variety of beetles. Their voracious appetites can easily destroy the healthiest lawn in a matter of months. Identifying a grub infestation before it spirals out of control is critical in preventing the destruction of your lawn.

Preventing grub damage

Preventing grub damage starts with preventing grubs themselves. Closely monitor your lawn as summer advances. Watch for adult beetles flying about your yard. They are looking for a place to lay eggs and often choose full-sun green lawn areas with adequate to good soil moisture. Even if the weather has been dry, a watered lawn is a prime target for egg laying, but it doesn’t have to be.

How do I know if I have grubs in my lawn?

The first sign of grub damage in your lawn will be the wilting of your turf. Your lawn may look as if it is in need of water. As the grubs continue to feed, you will begin to see irregular-shaped brown spots. Strips of dead grass will easily peel away as if rolling back a carpet. Another sign of grubs is damage from skunks and raccoons digging up lawns in search of grubs to eat, usually at night.

If your lawn is infested you’ll have to do some renovation work in early fall.

The Cure

The best method of control is our two-step insecticide grub program. This involves a spring insecticide to control adults, followed by a mid-summer insecticide to control the new hatchling grubs that may be present. The second treatment should give the necessary control for the rest of the season.

Understanding Grubs

A grub’s life cycle starts in summer with the hatching of eggs laid from the May beetle or often called June bug. Once eggs hatch the babies develop during July and August and begin feeding on the turf’s roots, and damage becomes visible in September and October. The Fall Grub Preventative (applied in mid-summer) kills baby grubs before adulthood and prevents turf damage in fall. During the winter grubs do NOT die, they hibernate and once soil temps reach 55-60 degrees in spring they wake up as full adults and do serious damage to truf in a short period of time. To eradicate the adult grubs and stop further turf damage the Spring Grub Curative needs to be applied.

Lawn Aeration

Improves lawn density and promotes deeper root growth

Aeration increases the penetration of air, water and nutrients into the root zone area stimulating new root development and encouraging thicker turf growth. Your lawn will be healthier and greener throughout the growing season.

More beneficial than “de-thatching”

Soil aeration promotes the decomposition of thatch while also improving the soil structure. Aeration also does not leave the lawn in the stressed and unsightly condition that de-thatching often does.Aeration increases the penetration of air, water and nutrients into the root zone area stimulating new root development and encouraging thicker turf growth.

Recommended for overseeding

For existing lawn renovation or overseeding, aeration is ideal for creating lodging places for the seed to germinate.

Reduces the possibility of disease and insect infestation

Lawn aeration relieves the disease-creating effects of soil compaction and increases the decomposition of thatch to reduce this insect and disease-breeding habitat. Aeration is much safer and less costly than corrective chemical treatments.

Promotes the decomposition of thatch

Removing cores of soil and thatch increases the infiltration of air and water into the thatch layer. This will encourage condition favoring micro-organism activity that breaks down accumulated thatch.