Wild West Blog Article
By Ron Honig
May 29, 2024
A June Checklist of Lawn Chores
Bagworm Control on Evergreens
If you have evergreen trees such as cedars and arborvitae, now is the time to be concerned about bagworm control, especially if you have had problems in recent years. Bagworms are the larvae that form the little hanging bags from your evergreen branches made of plant materials.
The bagworm eggs overwinter in the bags and hatch as small larvae in mid-May. Late-May to late-June is the best time to make an insecticide application. For best results, make two applications of insecticide: one now in late-May and again in late-June. If you can only make one application, do it in late-June when most of the larvae have hatched and are exposed on the tree branches. A single application may result in more feeding damage and the chance of missing some bagworm larvae if you do not get good spray coverage.
Recommended insecticide active ingredients for bagworm control include permethrin, acephate, cyfluthrin, and spinosad.
Fertilize Warm-Season Grasses
June is a good time to fertilize warm-season grasses such as Bermudagrass, zoysiagrass, and buffalograss. These warm-season grasses are greening up now and will welcome an application of nitrogen fertilizer.
Because warm-season grasses green up later than cool-season grasses, applying nitrogen fertilizer too early can stimulate weed growth rather than grass growth. And, reversely, applying nitrogen to these grasses too late in the summer can create a flush of new grow late in the season when the warm-season grasses should be going dormant, increasing the risk of winter injury.
For Bermudagrass, apply one pound of actual nitrogen per 1,000 square feet of area every four weeks for two to three months depending on the thickness of the stand and the desired color.
Buffalograss does not necessarily require any nitrogen fertilizer to be healthy, however applying one pound of actual nitrogen per 1,000 square feet of area once in early June will increase foliage growth. For a darker green color, apply another half-pound of nitrogen in mid-July.
For Zoysiagrass, apply a split application of three-fourths pound of nitrogen twice, once in June and once in mid-July.
White Grub Control in Lawns
The May beetles (June bugs) are here and the offspring of these beetles, the white grub, will soon be active in lawns feeding on grass roots. There are two beetles that cause us grub problems in lawns in our area: the May beetle and the smaller Southern Masked Chafer beetle. The May beetle carries on a three-year lifecycle in the yard, while the Southern Masked Chafer beetle has a one-year or annual life cycle. Both can be controlled in the same manner.
A late-June application of a residual insecticide applied to the lawn surface and then watered down into the soil, will reduce grub numbers significantly thus usually limiting grass root damage to minimal, unnoticeable levels. Recommended insecticides for this late-June application include imidacloprid (Merit) or halofenozide (MACH 2). Both of these have a longer soil residual allowing for an early application.
Homeowners using carbaryl (Sevin) or permethrin (Ant, Flea and Tick Killer Granules) should hold off on their grub control application until early August as those products have a relatively short life in the soil and must be applied when the majority of the grubs are available.
If grub numbers are high and go untreated, a homeowner may see small spots or even larger areas of lawn grass turn brown late in the summer as the larvae remove the roots just below the surface.
In areas where skunks or raccoons have access to the lawn at night homeowners may see small patches of turf flipped over as the animals forage for the large grubs hiding just under the surface.
Large grubs feeding in late August or September may require a rescue treatment be made to the lawn using the insecticide trichlorfon (Dylox). Ask your lawn professional for help finding the right product.
