Ten Problematic Lawn Pests

If it wasn’t enough that you needed to protect lawns from the elements, you now have to consider the different types of rodents or pests that could be coming for our yards. Fortunately, there are tips, tricks, and tools you can use to help protect your client’s yards so that their lawns are forever beautiful. Take a look at the pests that could be plaguing your client’s yards. 

Lawn Ruining Pests

Sod Webworm

A type of lawn caterpillar, sod webworms appear most often in the late summer to early fall time of the year. They are differentiated from other caterpillars by their thick, pale-green-brown body and it is marked with spots all along the length of their body. These worms will hatch their eggs that are laid by an adult moth on the surface of the lawn and will eat the grass. This will cause brown and dead patches to appear. If you spot rough-edged blades of grass, your client may have a webworm problem. 

Cinch Bugs

While these bugs are extremely small, their damaging impact can be huge. They’re so small that they’re hard to spot with the naked eye, however, when they being to feed on the surface of your client’s turf, they leave their toxic saliva all over the blades of grass and cause the plant or turfgrass to die. Yellow patches of grass that turn brown before dying are one way to spot these tiny creatures. 

Cutworm

Yet another small but damaging creature, the cutworm is another type of lawn caterpillar that can cause some serious damage. These moth larvae will cut off turfgrass at the crown and drag them into a burrow to feed on them. These cutworm moths lay their eggs at night and because they’re attracted to light, they’re more likely to be found on lawns with lots of sunlight. You can spot this infection by noticing patches of grass that are cut off at the base. 

Ants

Having a healthy number of ants in your yard is very beneficial, as their constant tunneling acts as an aeration for your lawn. They also add organic substances that help with soil health.  However, with too many ant tunnels comes a dried-out lawn plagued with mounds of dirt on the surface, and these mounds can smother the lawn. 

Mole Crickets

These tiny critters are more commonly found in the southeastern U.S. They belong to the same family as grasshoppers and regular crickets. Mole crickets are equipped with mole-like front claws that they use to tunnel in the soil beneath lawns. This can lead to your lawn being weakened, as they also tend to feed on the roots and shoots of the lawn. 

What You Can Do To Save Your Client’s Turf

If you happen to spot any of these symptoms in your client’s landscaping, it’s important to make sure you have the equipment to help improve their grass turfs’ health.

With landscaping supplies from Hydro-Rain, you can eliminate your client’s pest problems.

Click here to get started with shopping our landscaping supplies today!

Join us for our next blog to read about five more problematic lawn pests.