(MCT)—In many parts of the country, now is the time of year to treat your lawn for grubs. Neglecting preventive treatment, or ignoring key warning signs of grub damage, could be an expensive mistake.
“They can do thousands of dollars’ worth of damage” to your lawn, says David Tice of Tice Lawn Maintenance in Prospect, Conn. “It’s not cheap to do lawn restoration. It’s kind of expensive and it costs twice as much to kill them as it does to prevent them – just for the product – never mind the damage that they do.”
There are several different types of grubs — which are the larva of beetles that like to feed on grass roots — with the most common coming from Japanese Beetles, June Bugs and European Chafers. As a result, there are also a variety of treatment options depending on the type of grub there is and whether they’ve done lawn damage or not.
Identifying potential grub issues can be a challenge for the average homeowner, in part because the damage often mimics drought-ridden grass.
“That’s the most difficult thing about grubs,” says Wes Ory of Heritage Lawns & Landscape in Olathe, Kan. “Because that larva is below ground and it’s feeding on the roots of the plant, there aren’t a lot of signs or indicators you have a problem until you start seeing brown spots show up in the lawn. In Kansas City, we start seeing that somewhere around the middle of August, maybe the first of August, depending on the year.”
Another indication of a heavy grub population is birds, skunks, armadillos and other animals — depending on the part of country they’re in — feeding on grubs in the lawn.
