While spending time in your garden, you may see small critters that are usually white, or an off white in color.
These are generally what are referred to as lawn grubs, and definitely look strange.
You might be asking yourself:
- What are these bugs?
- How do they impact and/or affect my garden?
- Do I need to do something to remove them?
We thought it might be helpful to share some of our top facts or information about lawn grubs including some additional knowledge to help you determine if you want to take some action to get back control of your lawn.
This is a tested article of information, so watch out and be careful of what you find out until #7, because number 7 will make you wish you did not look or inquire!
1. Lawn Grubs Can Cause Massive Damage to Your Lawn!
Though these little creatures may look pretty innocent, lawn grubs can become a real headache to anyone trying to maintain their lawn.
If you let these little creatures get out of control, they could end up having a pretty sizable effect on the condition of your otherwise nice area.
Lawn Grubs can leave spongy grass, dead patches, and loose soil in their wake.
Clearly, you don’t want to experience this as much as is possible.
In This Case: You would do well to stay tuned and pay careful attention to some of the other facts in this list that may help you in keeping these things at bay.
2. Timing Is Everything
If you are going to decide to take action regarding a lawn grub problem you need to keep in mind the time of year to take that action.
If you apply treatment at the wrong time, you may end up in the exact same situation all over again!
There are times of the year when it is much more effective to start treating your lawn to prevent it from becoming home to lawn grubs.
If you initiate your treatments towards the end of summer and early fall, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the success of preventing lawn grubs from hatching from the invites in your lawn.
Of course, you can try preventative methods during other times of the year but the worst case scenario is if you don’t take the right action during the right time of year!
3. Lawn Grubs Come In Many Shapes and Sizes
Even though all the lawn grubs likely look similar, there are in fact quite a few different types of Lawn Grubs.
As the larvae of many different forms of beetles, there will be an equivalent number of different types of Lawn Grubs as there are beetles that they become.
There are subtle differences (of many forms) between different types of lawn grubs:
- Some types will have differently colored coloration (such as a head that can be any number of colors ranging from red to yellow, to black).
- Some can have differently oriented mandibles, or different edifaces from one form to another, or some can some be a different size all together.
Laughingly even though they will mostly look the same, it will be fun to see the subtle differences between them all.
4. Eats, Roots, and Leaves
You might be asking yourself, what could Lawn Grubs possibly eat, and some of you clever ones may have gathered the clues is in the name, your lawn!
Lawn Grubs can eat throughout the entire plant, from the leaves to the roots which in some cases can cause significant damage to both the integrity and appearance of your lawn.
So if you are planning on having your lawn be a place you can sit down and relax, and be in your little piece of nature, you might want to check to see if some grubs have moved in amongst the green.
In fact, enough damage and you could have a potentially lawn that could be rolled like a carpet, as the roots will have been compromised!
5. Lawn Grubs Live for 3 Weeks
You might be surprised to learn that lawn grub life cycles are usually only about 3 weeks long!
This is not to say their life cycle is only 3 weeks long.
But, from the time they will live until they become beetles, they only spend 3 weeks of that time as grubs.
A lawn grub’s job is to eat enough in border to gather more energy, so that is can complete the maximum process of becoming a fully formed beetle.
After They Hatch: They will eat the greens in your gastro, and can keep eating more greens, until they are full enough to then go on the journey to develop into the much more attractive beetle they were always meant to be.
6. Lawn Grubs Become Beetles
As noted above, the grub stage of lawn grubs eventually metamorphoses into beetles.
They can be all sorts of beetles, and while they may have shed their slimy nature and hideous appearances, they can be deadly to your gardens.
Now that they can travel much more freely and, in many cases, fly, they can pick and choose where to feed.
This does mean that some of those planted in more obscure or inaccessible locations can now also be eaten by the hungry creatures.
This is one of the benefits of getting on top of a lawn grub problem: it doesn’t go away simply because armies of creatures have reached their adult stage.
7. Lawn Grubs Can Cause Irritation, Scratching, and Redness!
One of the things about lawn grubs that may surprise and possibly disgust you, is that these small and seemingly harmless critters can cause some very annoying symptoms (but are generally not a huge issue) when they come in contact with the skin.
It is the texture of their slimy outer layers that can make your skin irritated, itchy, red and swollen.
While this won’t cause you any real injury it is not something to have happen to you if you are doing yard work!
If you wear even the flimsiest protective gear when dealing with lawn grubs, it will prevent these annoying symptoms, but it is just good awareness before you take on your lawn grub problem.
8. Collateral Damage
While the damage that lawn grubs can do on their own can already make your lawn a disaster, there is another factor involved!
The predators that are out there, feeding on the lawn grubs, will sometimes do damage to your lawn in the process of eating its next meal.
Birds, rodents, and other mammals will all take a swipe or swoop at getting to these critters.
Have you noticed: Sometimes you may find your lawn dug up from these predators, and while they are getting rid of the lawn grubs, now you have another layer of damage!!
9. Small Amounts of Lawn Grubs are Fine
If you’ve been working in your garden and you see just a few lawn grubs, you may be concerned that it is on the brink of neglect.
But don’t worry. Unless the number of lawn grubs was significantly detrimental, your lawn will bounce back just fine, or they may not even be the culprit.
But the moment you begin to see damage, you will want to act quickly before the damage takes root.
So rest assured, if there is a small phenomenon of lawn grubs it is not a concern, however, it can only help to be vigilant.
10. Pesticides Can Get Rid of Them
An effective option for defeating a lawn grub infestation is to start a treatment with a pesticide.
Pesticides, as you may know, can carry their own risks if not used correctly, but can also be very effective.
You can start to eliminate the grubs, as well as any eggs they laid by either spraying pesticides, or adding them to your water for your lawn.
Using a pesticide, compared with either of the other options mentioned in this post, would work great together to help stop your grub issue.
11. Hot, Dry Summers
One potentially surprising aspect of eradicating grubs from lawns is that weather can play a significant role in regards to the eventual outcome of these larvae.
This is because grubs prefer the moisture provided by rain and mud, and a long, hot summer with little to no rain can put a damper on their plans of lawn domination.
If the lawn dries up for the summer, there will be little food for the grubs to feed on, and they may not even be able to get enough energy even to be able to transform into beetles!
Final Thoughts
To close out, there are a few more fascinating and bizarre points you may want to keep in mind when thinking about managing lawn grubs.
You should respect these creatures from their annoyance to the life they can bring to your garden.
We trust that this blog post will have contributed to your knowledge on some of the facts around lawn grubs, and if you require additional references, you can be assured there are lots available.