For a Lush Lawn, Hire Lawn Squad & Lose the Pests!

Chinch bugs, beetle larvae, armyworms, webworms… besides grossing some of us out, there’s something all these creatures have in common: they love lawns and may love destroying them even more.

All About Grubs

In the lawn care world here in Southeastern Massachusetts, we use the word “grubs” to refer to the larvae of the Japanese beetle, most active in the months of April and May as well as from late summer through the middle of autumn. Cream white in color and shaped like a C, these grubs tend to live a few inches into the soil, where they can feed on your lawn’s roots. This feasting can kill patches of your lawn that don’t seem to grow back even after applying other lawn care interventions like aeration or fungicide.

There are a few easily recognizable signs of a grub problem in your yard, including:

• Holes where wild animals and pets alike are digging up your lawn in search of grubs to eat
• Recurring dead, brown patches
• Spongy areas of your lawn, similar to fresh sod
• Damaged grass roots and lawn that appears to roll up like carpet
• Increased moths in your lawn and garden beds

You can also sample a patch of your lawn to see if you can find grubs. Dig an area about 6 inches wide and 4 to 6 inches deep. When you flip this section of sod onto a flat surface, break up any clumps attached to the roots and count any grubs you find. A healthy lawn can tolerate a certain number of grubs – around 8 to 10 per square foot – but if more are present, it will overwhelm your grass’s ability to thrive.

Down & Dirty Grub Control Solutions

If you’ve noticed any of the signs above, or you’ve sampled your lawn and found that there are too many grubs in your turf, you can call on Lawn Squad for effective grub control solutions.

Surface Insect Invaders

There are three main types of pests that tend to feed on the grass aboveground rather than below its surface. Each of these pests can impact the way your grass looks, causing brown patches, areas of thin turf, and even the death of larger areas of grass. The main culprits are below:

1. Chinch bugs have soft bodies that tend to live in the area just above the crowns of the grass, near the soil. You can determine whether you have an infestation by partially burying a cylinder like a coffee can about two to three inches into the soil. Fill it with water and then wait a few minutes. When you lift the can away, the chinch bugs will float to the surface where the cylinder was. They’re most active in the summer between mid-June and the end of August.
2. Caterpillars known as sod webworms eat blades of grass, usually at night, and are difficult to find during the daytime. In order to sample your soil for a webworm issue, mix a tablespoon or two of lemon-scented dish soap with a gallon of water and pour over a 2-foot by two-foot area of soil. Within five minutes, they’ll leave their burrows. Make sure to rinse the area with clear water, or you’ll risk burning the turf.
3. Bluegrass billbugs can cause major damage to bluegrass lawns. They are beetles that appear to have snouts and a pointed end. If, when observing insect activity on the sidewalk along your lawn on a sunny day, you find more than two billbugs per minute of your observation, you likely have an infestation brewing.

Sampling your lawn like this can give you a clue regarding the level of invader activity in your turf. Your lawn, given otherwise a strong maintenance plan, should be strong enough to maintain some level of activity from these pests. The problem occurs when an abundance of pests creates a lack of resources, causing your grass to suffer.

Lawn Squad can help you monitor these pests, and, should you find signs of infestation, manage it with our lawn surface insect control treatments.

Lawn Insecticides 101

There are multiple forms of pest control that can help make a lawn more inhospitable to potential intruders.

One of our offerings is a perimeter pest spray program that uses insecticide to create an invisible barrier around your property and/or home, causing insects to retreat elsewhere. This spray disrupts the pheromone trails bugs use to get around and spread the news about tasty treats to their kin. When bugs are unable to track these trails, they become uninterested in your property, assuming that it has nothing to sustain them.

Once an infestation has begun to grow, however, there is the question of those bugs that have already taken up residence around your home. In these circumstances, it is necessary to use more aggressive lawn control treatments that can attack the prime breeding and gathering areas of these pests.

When you hire Lawn Squad to take care of your lawn insecticide needs, the defense begins with targeted application in these areas, killing adult pests on contact while disrupting the reproductive cycle. The benefit of this kind of insecticide is that while it helps to take down the numbers of pests present on your property, at the same time it does some of the work a perimeter pest spray would do, interrupting pheromone trails and building a barrier of improved protection.

Lawn Squad: Your Lawn’s Best Defense

When you partner with Lawn Squad for lawn care in your Southeastern Massachusetts lawn, you’ll get all the benefits of a locally owned and operated company that puts its customers first. We’re dedicated to helping your lawn flourish. Your lawn’s transformation starts now – get in touch by calling us at 774-295-1455 or visiting us online today!