The best step to control those pesky lawn pests is a healthy, well maintained lawn. This is not a foolproof way to rid your grass of ALL harmful insects but it's a step in the right direction. Harmful insects are "lawn predators". As with all predators they look for the weak, easy prey. Imagine this on Animal Planet: " The grubworm slowly moves in so as not to startle the unsuspecting blade of grass. The blade is weak, yellow, having not been fed or watered in months. The grub spots a tear in the blade of grass and ATTACKS!! Okay, you get the picture. A healthy lawn keeps pests from having an easy meal.

The next step is to use an organic pest control. There are two reasons for this. First, they are environmentally friendly and do not harm your lawn when used properly. What's the point of killing a pest if what you use to kill it does more damage to your grass than the pest itself? Second, how many times have you seen a toddler just learning how to walk fall face first into the grass or kids running barefoot through the sprinkler? Your skin is like a sponge and absorbs things especially the skin on the bottom of your feet.

There are many organic pest control solutions available on the market today. Neem is sap from a tree in India. It is one that many insects do not like the smell of. Other insects, when they ingest it, their reproductive system shuts down. Insects lay an unbelievable number of eggs each year. What better way to control an insect problem than to stop it before it starts? Another helpful solution is ladybugs. Ladybugs eat many harmful insects especially the soft bellied ones (ie. grubworms and many others). Unless your wife is like mine (Ewww a bug!), the more ladybugs the better.

Finally, there is the option of chemical pesticide. If your lawn is absolutely, positively infested with weeds, this option definitely kills the pests. It also kills the helpful insects that may be in your lawn (Remember those helpful little ladybugs we talked about?). It will also kill the grass and disrupt the balance of nutrients in the soil. At this point, it might just be better to dig up the entire lawn and start over. As a customer of Matt's Lawn Care your lawn will never get to this point, I promise. If your lawn is already this bad, give us a call. We will gladly put our tiller to work, cultivate your soil, and reseed your lawn. Then in a few, short weeks you will have a beautiful lawn and you can hire us to maintain it so you will never have to deal with those pests again.