Lawn Pests
Before you can remedy any lawn pest problem, you need to know what insect species are bringing harm to your garden. Below is a list of common lawn pests that are harmful to your plants:
Ants
Ants can be found in yellow, red, brown or black color. There are usually 1/16 to 1/2 inch in length and they will eat everything you can eat, including any seeds and leaves you have in your garden.
Some ants bite and some have poisonous stings that can cause discomfort to you if they attack you.
In order to wipe out this annoying lawn pest, attack its nest. You need to destroy the queens in the nest before they broaden their colonies with the mating of their winged males and females. In cases of severe infestations, seek the help of a professional exterminator.
Aphid
Usually 1/16 and 1/8 inch long, this specie of lawn pest is extremely nasty. They will pierce and suck sap from leaves, bark, flowers and roots and their toxic saliva can stunt new growth, deforms flowers and causes leaves to wilt and curl.
The sticky substance that all aphids secrete is called honeydew which is basically the plant sap enriched with sugars and amino acids. This substance is really bad as it attracts more ants and encourage the growth of sooty mold.
Aphids can also transmit fire blight, mosaic and other viral and bacterial diseases to plants they invade. To deal with this menace, simply spray them off from your plants and wash the leaves and stems with soapy water. In cases of severe infestation, you can spray or dust your plants with nicotine sulfate, rotenone or malathion. You can also purchase ladybug beetles, aphid lions and praying mantises as natural lawn pest controls.
Beetle
The are many types of beetles that you will encounter in your garden. Since both immature and mature beetles have chewing mechanisms, you need to know which species is beneficial to you and which ones are harmful to your plants.
An easy way to determine whether a beetle is a plant-eater (a foe) or carnivorous (a friend) is to look at the shape of its mouth. If the jaws are short and chunky, then you need to keep it away from your plants. On the other hand, if it has long, pointed mandibles with sharp cutting edges, it will be useful to have it in your garden as part of your natural pest control strategy.
The easiest way to deal with harmful beetles is to make sure that you have no place for them to shelter their eggs. Be sure to cultivate the soil in early spring to destroy larvae. For further protection, you can use protect special plants with cheesecloth or mosquito netting.
Mexican Bean Beetle
There are some beetles that you need to pay extra attention and get a closer look before you decide if it's a friend or a foe.
For example, the ladybug beetles that feed on aphids both as adults and as larvae are a bleesing to your garden but the Mexican bean beetle is a terrible lawn pest.
The mexican bean beetle is larger than a normal ladybug beetle. It is about 1/4 inch long and there are 16 black dots which form lines across its wing sheaths. The yellow larva is oval in shape, with long, black-tipped spines.
The damages these lawn pests can do is destructive. They usually feed from the undersides of leaves and chew holes in the foliage of beans, cowpeas and soybeans. They will also attack pods and stems of the plants and eventually skeletonizing them. The best way to deal with this lawn pest is to:
- Plant bush rather than pole beans.
- Remove leaves with orange egg masses and destroy them.
- Spray the underside of foliage with rotenone, carbaryl, diazinon or malathion.
Borer
Borers are insects that feed unseen inside stems and buds or even beneath bark. They can be grubs or caterpillars. An easier explanation would be a wormlike insect eating their way into a vegetable such as a corn.
There are two ways for these lawn pests to enter a plant:
- They are being thrust in as eggs by their parents.
- After eating, they force their way in through eating.
In either case, they are still very nasty and hard to control as they are internal feeders. To get rid of these borers manually, you need to use a flexible wire to probe into the holes and then dig out each grub or caterpillar with a sharp knife. Just make sure that you cover the borer holes with tree-wound dressing to prevent any further invasion by bacteria or fungi.
Perhaps the best way to protect your plants would be to make sure that they are healthy at all times through proper watering, fertilization and spraying to keep those annoying lawn pests away. If you're growing vegetables such as corn, potato, pumpkin and cucumber, you want make sure that you burn away or disposed any plant debris that might harbor insect eggs.
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larvae of moths or butterflies. Since moths and butterflies are themselves harmless to plants, it's really up to you whether you want to have them in your garden.
Regardless, destructive caterpillars can be best controlled by ensuring that your garden is clean and that you cultivate it frequently.
Most species that pupate underground can be destroyed in early spring by deep spading. Make sure that you dispose of all visible cocoons. You can also attract birds as a natural pest control. To attract birds, simply have a few bird houses with water and feeders in your garden.
Grasshopper
Grasshoppers are usually green, brown, gray or black and they are about 1 to 2 1/2 inches in length and they can be very destructive when they migrate in swarms.
Did you know that a swarm of these nasty lawn pests can defoliate an orchard in just a few hours? They can also eat any type of fabric so make sure that you don't let them enter your house!
Since the eggs are usually buried an inch below the soil line, you can turn the soil under in the fall to bury the eggs so deep that the young cannot make their way to the surface. Alternatively, you can spray or dust plants with malathion, rotenone, carbaryl or diazinon.