Do you have a problem with June Bugs?

June, unsurprisingly, is when most people spot the dreaded June Bug in their garden (if they’re early, they’re often called May Bugs – but they’re still the same old bug.)

These voracious beetles are a sign of big problems for your lawn and landscape - because if you think the visible damage they inflict on your trees and shrubs is bad, you should hear what their grubs and larvae are doing to your lawn and grass.

Here are some signs that you have a June Bug problem:

• Your trees and shrubs are getting attacked: June Bugs ‘skeletenize’ leaves – eating all the material between the veins and leaving them bare and bony. Trees attacked by June Bugs are often described as looking ‘scorched.’
• Your lawn is patchy and brown: June Bugs plant dozens of eggs into your lawn and turf during the summer. These hatch into grubs and larvae which feast on the roots of your grass. This often leaves your lawn patchy and scruffy, even if you’ve been watering and fertilizing it.
• You have a lot of unwanted guests: Skunks, raccoons, moles and birds will treat your infested lawn like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet. If you’ve noticed an unusual number of nocturnal visitors, or found your lawn torn and dug up in the morning, it might be a symptom of June Bugs.
• You see the bugs themselves: June Bugs tend to only come out at night, but they’re easy enough to spot when you’ve got them. In June and July, they can literally swarm your plants. They’re normally a metallic brown or black, but their Asian cousins, the Japanese Beetle, can be green.

If you suspect you have a June Bug infestation, call a professional. Tree and lawn care specialists like Aspenn Environmental Services can not only diagnose your problem (or confirm your infestation) but offer a balanced way to deal with it.

The first stage is killing the grubs and controlling the beetles and bugs. In order to minimize the use of chemicals, Aspenn Environmental Services use chemical treatments specifically targeted to the deal with June Bugs and their larvae, using grub-killing granules to specifically target the grubs themselves to prevent another outbreak the following year.

This is not only more effective than using a ‘general insecticide’, it also requires fewer chemical treatments overall - which reduces potential exposure to yourself and your family.

And although people are concerned about the dangers of chemical pesticides, Aspenn use spraying techniques that make it perfectly safe for your family and pets to get outside and enjoy your garden again as soon as the initial application has dried.

Once the grubs are eliminated, the second stage is to repair the damage they’ve done to your lawn. Depending on how early you caught the infestation, this might just require aerating or fertilizing.

If the grubs are well-established, the best bet is to plow up your turf (killing the surviving grubs) to reseed it. The advantage of doing this is that tree and lawn care specialists like Aspenn Environmental Services will be able to help you choose hardy varieties of grass seed which will be more resistant to future problems.