Is Your Lawn a Grub’s Grub?

If you live in Rockland, Westchester, Bergen, and Orange Counties, it’s that time of year again when invisible critters, tucked away in your soil, are feasting on your grasses’ root system. Those critters are grubs and they’re larvae that will turn into Japanese beetles by mid-summer.

The Symptoms:

Grubs eat your turf’s root system. Many times you don’t know that they’re in the process of destroying your lawn until you see signs of turf damage.
Here are four signs that indicate you have a grub problem:

1. If there are irregular brown patches of grass
2. If lawn areas feel spongy when you walk across them
3. If skunks, raccoons, and birds are foraging your lawn, possibly looking for grubs to eat
4. If you have dead turf that can be easily rolled up like a loose carpet.

The only way sure-fire way to know if you have a grub problem, though, is to do a grub check. You can do a grub check by pulling up your grass and examining a small section of sod. If there are more than six grubs per square foot, you have a grub problem.
The Diagnosis:
Majestic Lawn Care and Landscape can help you get rid of grubs. Yet, Joe Holland recommends that you contact Majestic Lawn & Landscape before you start seeing signs of grub damage. Joe suggests that you start a systematic insecticide program, beginning in mid-August, while the beetles are laying their eggs, but before the eggs get to the larvae stage.
Here’s how a systematic insecticide works: The insecticide is applied to the soil and absorbed by the roots. Grubs are poisoned when they eat the grass’s root system.
Any turf damage that was done before the insecticide was applied will require reseeding and extra watering to get your lawn back to health.  And you’ll probably see grubs make a comeback if your yard was never treated for grub control in the past.

Don’t Forget the Beetles

Grubs that make it into adulthood are troublemakers too. Japanese beetles, the most common source of grubs, will eat the leaves and flowers of more than 300 plant species—and many of those plants could be in your landscape. Japanese beetles will skeletonize plants by eating the tissue between the plant’s veins. You can control Japanese beetles by hand-picking or trapping them. You can also use insecticide sprays to kill them.
If you live in Rockland, Westchester, Bergen, and Orange Counties, call Majestic Lawn Care and Landscape do to a grub check on your lawn. You can make an appointment by calling them at 845-708-2988.