Avoid Using Fertilizers Excessively
Apply the right amount of fertilizer. Excessive fertilizer use also promotes the growth of thatch and makes grass more appealing to chinch bugs as a food source.
So use a slow-release formula during the summers, or use small amounts of fertilizer when needed.
You can improve soil conditions by top-dressing with organic matter such as compost or well-aged animal manure.
What To Spray On Lawn To Kill Insects
With Ortho Bug B Gon Max Insect Killer for Lawns, you can kill and prevent listed insects from invading your outdoor space for up to 3 months. It kills 100+ insects including ants, fleas, ticks, chinch bugs, spiders, sod webworms, and armyworms. It kills both above and below the surface.
When should I apply insecticide to my lawn?
Control Insects and Grubs in Your Lawn
- Apply from mid-summer to early fall.
- One application will kill the grubs for the rest of the season.
- Systemic control kills both surface and soil insects.
- Protects your lawn from top to bottom.
- Water the lawn immediately after application.
- You may seed with this product.
Is Chinch Bug Control Safe
Yes, it is but like anything in life it comes with precautions. We typically dont recommend homeowners do their own pest control even though there are products available. Professionals are certified, know what theyre doing, have been educated on the applications and have the safety tools needed to execute a safe and effective treatment.
After an application of chinch bug treatment, keep pets, yourself, and children off the lawn for the rest of the day. Once dried, the product isnt toxic to non-insects but its always wise to take additional steps to keep your yard safe.
There is no need to water your lawn after a chinch bug application. Avoid watering the lawn also for the rest of the day. If it rains shortly after an application, it should still be effective, but its worth having a follow up appointment about 2-3 weeks after the initial application.
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Are Insect Lawn Killers Safe For Home Use
Insect lawn killers can be safe for home use, provided they are used with caution. Several types of insecticide are toxic to humans, domestic animals, and wildlife, and should always be applied according to instructions. People and pets should not be allowed to enter treated areas until the product has dried completely.
If the product gets on your skin, wash the affected areas immediately and thoroughly.
If you get the product in your eyes, flush the affected eye thoroughly with clean, tepid water for 15-20 minutes. If you wear contact lenses, remove them after 5 minutes and continue to rinse the eye. If irritation persists, contact your doctor.
If you inhale the product, move to an area with fresh air. If you feel unwell, contact a doctor.
If you swallow the product, contact poison control. Many insecticidal products are highly toxic if ingested by people or animals.
If It Bites You It Bugs Us
Many insects can destroy your lawn, find crevices to sneak inside your home, or even pose health risks to your loved ones. Dont let your property become a living space for unwanted critters. From lawn pest control to outdoor mosquito and tick control to prevent bugs like ants and centipedes from invading your home, Lawn Doctor and our lawn care professionals have your back.
Our most popular insect and pest control services include:
Mosquito and Tick Control
Mosquitoes and ticks arent just annoying they could also make you sick. From West Nile to Lyme disease, mosquitoes and ticks have the potential to carry a variety of serious diseases. Its time to protect your family and pets from these possible dangers with Mosquito and Tick control from Lawn Doctor.
The Yard Armour Mosquito and Tick Control Services, which includes several effective pest control options, target mosquitoes and ticks where they live, breed, and set up their attack sites. We spray the bottom side of leaves where mosquitoes sleep. As they settle on to the treated leaves, the product gets absorbed through their feet. Tall grassy weeds are sprayed to target ticks, as this is the prime area for them to perch while waiting to grab on to a new host. These are a few of the Mosquito and Tick Control tactics Lawn Doctor uses to make your yard a safer environment for your family and pets.
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What Is The Best Bug Killer For Yard
Spectracide Triaze Insect killer granules is hands down one of the best selling products intended for killing lawn insects. Spectracide Triaze eliminates more than 100 different types insects including ants, crickets, armyworms, cutworms, grubs, ticks and many others including underground insects.
Ant Hills And Lawn Maintenance
- Ant colonies mounds and hills arent the only concerns with these exciting creatures. Many species are interested in ranching and will farm aphids and mealybugs, protecting and aiding them with their daily needs to maintain a local source of honeydew.
- Honeydew is a fluid generated by aphids and mealybugs that ants consider a delicacy. A colony of agricultural ants can cause havoc on your vegetables and decorative plants, as they are the preferred food of mealybugs and aphids. Controlling ants in the lawn is an effective method of reducing the population of these troublesome insects.
- Ants prefer undisturbed, low-traffic areas with dry, well-drained soil. Lawn ants are usually not a problem because they do not sting, but some species have a habit of weakening grass roots, resulting in extensive dead areas in the lawn.
- Another issue is ant mounds in the grass, which may grow to be quite massive and offer a tripping hazard, and make mowing difficult. Raking will be routine maintenance for lawn care and ant hills in low population areas. Simply raking the hills will disperse the population and prevent solidified mounds from forming. This easy technique is successful from fall to summer if done every week.
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Simple Way To Find Out If You Have An Insect Problem
If youre seeing lawn damage and think you might have an insect infestation, but dont know what kind of insect it is, try this general test.
Its called a soap-flush.
The process involves mixing four or five tablespoons of dish soap into two gallons of water. Pour this mixture onto an area of your lawn that is between four and six square feet.
If you have insects, they will come out within the next five minutes.
Its normal to see some insects emerge.
But when you see huge numbers of insects emerge, you can assume you have a significant insect problem that needs to be addressed.
You can then complete lawn insect identification and figure out what type of bugs youre dealing with in your lawn.
Note, that if you use this method you should rinse the area well with a hose afterward. Too much dish soap can kill grass by interfering with its ability to absorb water.
So youll want to flush the area to avoid a big dead patch of lawn.
What Should I Feed My New Grass After Planting It
If you applied a starter lawn fertilizer when you planted your new grass, feed again 6 to 8 weeks later with a standard lawn food, like Scotts® Turf Builder® Lawn Food, which will help keep your new grass growing thick and green.
What kind of bugs are in my lawn?
Caterpillars, such as armyworms, cutworms and lawn moth insects, are often found in lawns. You may also find white grubs or chinch bugs in the lawn. Here are some tips to help you identify and treat these pests. A few caterpillars wont do much damage, but in large enough numbers, they can cause serious problems.
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What Is Biting Me In The Grass
What are chiggers? Chiggers are tiny larvae members of the arachnid family and are sometimes called red bugs. Although the larvae are extremely small in size, their bites pack a powerful punch. Theyre so tiny that you probably wont notice when they jump from that tall blade of grass onto your skin.
Should I Be Concerned
Chinch bugs feed by sucking the sap from the crown and stems of turf grasses. They prefer bentgrasses, but will attack many other lawn grasses like bluegrass and varieties of red fescue.
The damage caused by chinch bugs appears quickly in hot weather. With most of the damage in open, sunny areas, this may be mistaken for drought damage.
Lawn damage shows up as irregular yellow patches, which begin in June and spread over the summer. The grass may turn brown and die if feeding continues unchecked, and a severe infestation of chinch bugs can destroy an entire lawn.
Alternate Formats
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What Are Chinch Bugs
Chinch bugs are small, pesky bugs that commonly feast on zoysia grasses and St. Augustine lawns across the United States.
A full-grown Chinch body is less than ¼-inch long and has a dark red to black body, white wings, and a white dot on its back. Nymphs are easily recognized by their bright red color and white band across their abdomen.
Both adults and nymphs produce a strong odor that often gives them away, especially when pest numbers are high or they are crushed underfoot.
You will typically find Chinch bugs on lawns at a rate of fewer than 10-15 bugs per square foot of lawn however, it is vital that you do not underestimate these small bodies.
The right conditions can cause the population to multiply to over 100 bugs per square foot of lawn.
Evidently, these bugs can do extreme damage to your lawn if left untreated. Each bug punctures the grass with their needle-like beaks and then suck the fluids out.
As a result of their feeding, large irregular patches of lawn begin to turn yellow then brown as they die. These patches often begin on the edges of lawns and will continue to get largereven when properly watered.
Increased Bird Activity On Your Lawn Can Be A Sign You Have Bugs
Birds are wonderful guests to our homes and gardens. Its actually a great sign you have done something right in your garden. While birds foraging on lawn is natural, they can become a pest when they begin digging and making a mess of the lawn.
The presence of birds on the lawn can be a sign there is a bug infestation, as birds will flock in numbers if there is enough bugs for them all to feed on. They can be our friend by removing bugs and weeds, but destructive behaviour begins when bugs are in abundance.
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What Do They Do To Grass
Chinch bugs will eat up your grass so that it looks like patches of yellow grass. You may see bare spots, yellowing, or browning foliage. Especially if the grass is weedy and tall and offers them plenty of hiding places to munch without being disturbed.
They like to hide where they wont be seen so theyre safe from predators.
If youve ever seen your lawn in a drought, damage to it forms these pests look very similar.
Drought damage can be differentiated from chinch bugs as drought damage leaves an evenly damaged, brownish grassed area. Chinch bugs will leave mottled gross in patches or clumps unevenly with lines of undamaged grass between each patch.
Youll often notice this around lawn edges, foundations, driveways, streets, bricks, housing, and other buildings. Take a good look at the grass for the presence of these pests and also look for their nymphs. Theyre easy to spot because theyre bright pink/red with a stripe thats white.
You can also use a tool to dig around in the area where you suspect them to be and see if any of the bugs grab onto the tool. You can also wear some garden gloves and look at the grassroots for any chinch bugs present.
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Why Does My Backyard Have So Many Bugs
Some common backyard bugs, like the mosquito, breed in pools of standing water. This makes ponds, pools and drainage ditches prime habitat for these insects. If you remove the habitat, the bugs will likely move somewhere else. Remove any structure or drainage element that can hold standing water for a week or longer.
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The Lawn Pest Control Specialist Of Orlando Fl
Consider hiring a professional if you feel like you have tried everything, but the chinch bugs keep coming back. Active Environmental is the lawn pest control specialist in the Orlando area. We can keep your lawn healthy to prevent chinch bugs or kill them off your lawn for good. Active Environmental takes care of all of your lawns needs. Contact us for your quote today!
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How To Use Liquid Lawn Insect Killers
Liquid insect lawn killers often come in a concentrated formula which must be diluted with water before use.
Always read the instructions on the label thoroughly to make sure you get the ratio right.
You will also need to buy a separate sprayer for application.
Many liquid lawn sprays come in bottles that are designed to have hoses attached and are ready to use. In this case, you can skip the dilution part and follow these steps to use the product:
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Less Common Lawn Pests
Wire worm & False Wire Worm
The Wire Worm and False Wire Worm is the larvae stage of the click-beetle and causes damage to underground roots and stems. They will also eat seed embryos preventing germination. An application of a high concentrate of insecticide will help to control them.
Two spotted mite
Couch grass mite
Mole crickets
How Do I Know If I Have Chinch Bugs In My Lawn
The result? Brown or yellow, dried and dead patches begin appearing across your lawn. A spot here and there today may end up being a 18-meter patch which eventually spreads until your entire lawn is dead. The damage becomes more apparent in hot weather as thats when the bugs become very active. The mistake most homeowners make is that they assume this is a watering / dryness problem when in reality there is a sub-surface feeding frenzy going on thats taking all of the cake and eating it too.
It’s worth double checking to see if your lawn does have chinch bugs. Here are two DIY methods you can use to diagnose the issue:
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Natural Products To Kill Lawn Insects
Lawn insects, including armyworms, cutworms, billbugs, lawn moths, sod webworms and white grubs, can damage lawns by chewing or feeding on grass roots, which can make already stressed lawns turn yellow or brown, or die. While chemical treatments are sold at garden centers, you can also try natural products to eliminate insect problems.
How Often Should You Spray Your Lawn For Bugs
A customary bi-monthly service generally covers bugs like spiders, ants, crickets, silverfish, earwigs, and wasps. Any other insect may be measured a specialty pest. A bi-monthly service typically will work for specialty pests as well. Usually, pesticides are helpful up to two months after distribution in Cache Valley.
Will grub damaged lawn grow back?
If you have patches of dead grass that show up in the fall or spring, they are likely caused by grubs. Grub counts from six to 10 or more per square foot can damage and kill grass. It is best to repair your grub-damaged lawn in the fall or early spring to restore it to its green glory.
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What Is A Good Yard Insecticide
Dylox is one of the best yard insecticides that you can purchase. It is an overall good yard insecticide. Dylox is especially beneficial for controlling grubs quickly. It works on other bugs that live above and below ground. The ground must be watered upon first application but then does not have to be watered again.
The Scrape And Inspect Method
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Death By Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous earth is a natural substance formed from the dead skeletons of water-dwelling organisms, known as diatoms. Their high silica content makes for a residue, usually found at the bottom of bodies of water, that is sharp, abrasive and drying. The particles are tiny small, meaning that they are not dangerous to people or pets, but will cut and dry out insect exoskeletons effectively. Because diatomaceous earth is also safe for lawns, you may sprinkle it to help with the control of many types of insects. Do not apply when lawns are wet, as that will negate its effects. Youll have to reapply it after rain or watering the lawn.
Spray Leafy Plants With Neem Oil
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