BUGS & PEST CONTROL

Japanese Beetles and their larval grub form are arguably the most destructive garden pests you can face, capable of destroying your entire lawn or garden in only a matter of days. Most prevalent in the warmer months, these damaging scarab beetles lay their eggs in the soil during mid summer. These soon hatch into grubs which start eating your lawn from just under the soil surface until they emerge in spring as adult Japanese beetles. A full blown Japanese beetle problem is costly and a bit intimidating to tackle, but getting rid of and preventing Japanese beetles isn’t. Here’s how to control Japanese beetles with just 3 simple steps. 

The absolute most important step in controlling Japanese beetles is prevention. Not only is it the easiest, least expensive approach, it’s also by far the most impactful. Whether you constantly struggle with Japanese beetles or have never had them before, the following tips will help you avoid costly Japanese beetle issues moving forward:

• Overly wet lawns lead to larger, more damaging grub and Japanese beetle populations. To avoid this, water your lawn as little as possible through July, August, and the latter parts of June. Doing this will reduce the number of grubs and adult beetles you’ll experience the following year.
• During Japanese beetle season—late spring through summer—avoid cutting your grass too short, aiming for about 3 inches instead. Females prefer to lay their eggs in shorter grass and keeping your turf longer can help limit Japanese beetle populations.
• If you garden, make sure to harvest your fruits & veggies early and often. Additionally, if you tend to struggle with Japanese beetles every year, consider switching out your plants, avoiding Japanese beetles’ favorite foods, such as apples, peaches, plums, beans, raspberries, hibiscus, and roses. 
• Japanese beetles are most attracted to rotting and overripe plants, so keeping a healthy lawn and garden is key. Promptly remove diseased or otherwise dying plants, grasses, trees, fruits and vegetables before they attract additional beetles to your yard. 
• Avoid using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers in your lawn, doing so could decrease the health of your lawn, leading to larger Japanese beetle populations. 
• Attracting predators like birds and reptiles to your lawn is an effective and natural way to prevent serious Japanese beetle problems. Invite birds by offering baths and feeders, and attract reptiles by offering shallow dishes of water and cool, dark places for them to hide (an overturned planter works great for this!)
• Targeting Japanese beetles in their larval grub stage is an efficient way to devastate their populations before they mature into adults. Microscopic parasitic worms known as beneficial nematodes, the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, and milky spore are all effective options. 
• Employing row covers or drop cloths over vulnerable or appetizing plants will help both prevent Japanese beetle problems and their infamous damage. 

Lawn and gardens filled with other damaging bugs are much more likely to suffer from Japanese beetles, too. In short, pest damage leads to a less healthy lawn, and sicklier lawns are more attractive to hungry bugs like Japanese beetles.

By treating your lawn with a family-safe pesticide, you can help break up this cycle, protecting your lawn from potentially fatal Japanese beetle harm. Not only will this kill unwanted bugs in your lawn—like mosquitoes, ants, fleas, ticks, and chiggers—it will help keep Japanese beetle populations under control.

Start by thoroughly spraying your entire front, back, and side yards with PCO Choice, including shrubbery and bases of trees. For best results, repeat this process in two weeks and then move on to monthly applications afterward. If you’re not currently struggling with Japanese beetles and just need prevention, you can start with monthly applications right from the start.

If you live in a warmer region like the South, applications should be done every month unless the temperature drops below freezing for more than a few weeks. If you live in a state prone to cold spells, start spraying monthly in late February and then taper off in November as winter really starts to set in.

Because PCO Choice is plant-based and family-safe, no downtime is necessary. You, your family, and pets can enjoy your lawn right after application!

For additional protection, we strongly advise spreading Cedar Granules throughout your outdoor space, especially in and around your garden and other known trouble spots like vulnerable grass.

In addition to the prevention methods outlined above and treating your lawn and garden monthly, removing Japanese beetles by hand is one of the most effective approaches for getting rid of these terrible pests. Granted, It’s not the quickest, but the results speak for themselves.

For best results, venture out into your lawn & garden in the early morning when Japanese beetles are known to be most active. Wearing gloves, remove any Japanese beetles you come across. Be careful not to squeeze or damage them, doing so could attract more beetles. Finally, dispose of the collected beetles by dropping them in a bucket of soapy water (2 tablespoons of liquid dish soap per 1 gallon of water).

While their large pinchers might seem threatening, earwigs are actually quite harmless, and in many cases can be a welcome addition to your yard’s natural ecosystem. And no, the old wives’ tales are not true—earwigs never burrow into human ears or present any other threat to people or pets. In fact, in small numbers, these nocturnal, reddish-brown insects are actually beneficial, helping rid our lawns of decaying organic matter and undesirable or damaging bugs like aphids, slugs, snails, and mites. 

However, when conditions are just right, earwig populations can explode. In these instances, earwigs can cause significant damage to your lawn and garden, as they begin feeding on living plants, like vegetables, fruits, and ornamental flowers. In these cases, you’ll need to act fast to prevent costly damage. The following tips will help you keep earwig populations to a healthy, manageable level, all without resorting to poisonous, old-school pesticides.

• Jagged leaves with holes throughout your lawn and garden, similar to slug and snail damage but without the tell-tale slime trails. 
• Check on or around damaged plants for small black spots, this is what earwig poop looks like. 
• Lawn & garden damage that seems to occur mostly after rainy or particularly humid weather. 
• If you have planters, furniture, or any other equipment or tools in your yard, lift them up and check for earwigs. The babies look just like adult earwigs only smaller. They are likely to be found near mulch and other moist organic debris, too.

Preventing earwigs is much easier than getting rid of a thriving population. Thankfully, prevention is quite easy and essentially all comes down to basic home and lawn maintenance. Here’s how to do it:

• Earwigs usually enter our homes through small cracks or holes in windows, screens, doorways, baseboards, and countertops. Check these areas for possible earwig entry points and re-seal or repair items as needed. This will help with other common household bugs like ants, too. 
• Leaky faucets, drains, and other plumping either inside or outside your home can attract earwigs. Clogged gutters are also a common source of earwig problems. Check these items periodically and repair, replace, or clean as needed. 
• Earwigs tend to live in and feed on moist organic matter, like mulch, stacks of wood, leaves, and unkempt vegetation. Removing these attractants and other unnecessary clutter from your lawn can make a big difference when it comes to earwigs. 
• Large overhanging branches and dense shrubbery can help create moist, shady areas in your lawn, which is exactly the environment earwigs need to survive. Trim trees and bushes as needed to limit possible earwig hideouts. 

A DIY earwig trap is an effective way to reduce the number of earwigs in your lawn and garden. Just roll up a few sheets of damp newspaper and bind them together with a couple rubber bands. Place these rolls both inside and outside wherever earwigs tend to congregate, or near where you suspect they may be damaging your plants. Then simply check them the next day and dispose of any trapped earwigs. Pretty easy, right? 

Garden pests can create a vicious cycle that ultimately ruins your beautiful lawn and garden. It goes like this: pest damage leads to a less healthy lawn, and sicklier lawns are more attractive to damaging garden pests.

Break up this cycle by treating your lawn each month with the family-friendly Lawn & Garden Kit. Not only will this kill any unwanted bugs in your lawn—like mosquitoes, ants, fleas, ticks, and chiggers—but it will help prevent additional damaging pests like earwigs from taking hold. Repeat treatments monthly during the warm months or more as needed.

Because the Lawn & Garden Kit is non-toxic and plant-based, no downtime is required. You, your family, and pets can enjoy your lawn immediately after application.

While they’re mostly seen outdoors, earwigs occasionally find their way inside your home in search of food and shelter. A quick spray with family and pet-safe Cedarcide Original will kill any earwigs you see inside on contact.

To help keep future earwigs outdoors, spray known entry points and trouble areas like the baseboards and flooring in your bathrooms, laundry room, basement, and kitchen weekly with Cedarcide Original until the problem improves. 

Like many insects, earwigs are attracted to lights, especially any lighting positioned or pointing outdoors. Thankfully, there’s an easy way to address this common earwig attractant. A quick switch from traditional light bulbs to sodium bulbs can make a significant difference in the number of earwigs you experience near your home. Giving off a more yellow light, these bulbs lack the blue wavelengths that tend to attract unwanted bugs.

A thriving ecosystem with plenty of birds is often enough to keep unwanted earwig populations in check. Installing a few bird feeders or baths near earwig trouble spots in your yard can provide almost immediate results.

Grubs, the larval form of damaging scarab beetles like June bugs and Japanese beetles, can be a big problem for you and your beautiful lawn. Feeding on your grass’ roots from underground, grubs can cause thousands in damage before you even know they’re in your yard. To make matters worse, once they emerge as fully grown beetles, they’ll continue to tear up your lawn, damaging nearly all plant life they encounter. In only a few short months the beetles will again lay more grub eggs, starting the whole horrible cycle all over again.

Worried you might have grubs or could in the future? Currently struggling with an ongoing grub problem and not sure what to do? We have your back. Below you’ll learn how to identify, prevent, and get rid of grubs without exposing your family or pets to poisonous pesticides.

Not sure if you have a grub problem? Look out for the following signs and symptoms:

• Brown patches of grass
• Spongy, unhealthy spots of grass
• Brittle turf that can be easily pulled from the soil, essentially grass without roots
• Unusually high and sudden wildlife activity, such as birds, reptiles, skunks, and raccoons digging at your lawn. 
• Small holes throughout your lawn, usually a sign that animals have been feeding on grubs.

We’ll save you the suspense—your lawn has grubs. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have a grub problem. Moderate population sizes are normal and rarely if ever cause much of an issue. In general, 4 or less grubs per square foot is just fine. However, having 5 or more indicates a surging grub population that could cause significant damage and cost you hundreds in the long run. Here’s how to check:

Approach one of the brown, dying patches of turf in your lawn and dig up a square foot of sod about 3 inches deep. Closely inspect the soil looking for white or off-white C-shaved larvae—these are your grubs. If you find 5 or more, you need to act fast before things get worse

Natural, effective, and economical, beneficial nematodes are a popular gardening tool for a reason. Once they’ve taken hold in your lawn, these microscopic, parasitic worms attack grubs, killing them from the inside out. 

Because they’re alive and need to remain so to work, make sure to buy your nematodes from a legitimate dealer like your local garden shop, and water your lawn soon after applying them. This approach can take a season or more to be fully effective, so practice additional grub control methods in the meantime. Note: Using traditional, synthetic pesticides and fertilizers can kill nematodes, negating their pest control effect.

Lasting upwards of 20 years, a dose of milky spore introduced into your lawn can often solve grub issues outright. While it can take around 3 years for the bacterium to totally eradicate ongoing grub problems, the investment is well worth your time. 

Note: Using traditional, synthetic pesticides and fertilizers can kill milky spore bacteria, negating their pest control effect.

Feeding on both grubs, their adult beetle form, and countless other unwanted bugs, birds are arguably nature’s most efficient pest control tool. Attracting them is usually as simple as adding a few baths and/or feeders to your yard. You should notice a drop in your grub and beetle populations almost immediately. 

Adult grub beetles tend to avoid laying their eggs in longer, healthier grass. Simply keeping your grass to no less than 2 inches long during the fall, spring, and late summer can dramatically decrease and in many cases prevent grub problems.

Additionally, healthy lawns are overall far less vulnerable to grub and other pest problems compared to those in poor shape. Seeding and fertilizing patchy or otherwise damaged areas of your lawn during both spring and summer is another simple but effective way to deter grubs. For best results, avoid synthetic fertilizers and practice natural pest prevention. Don’t worry, our Lawn & Garden Kit has you covered in the bug department.

Overly wet or consistently moist lawns are known to foster larger, more damaging grub populations. To avoid this costly scenario, water your lawn as little as possible through July, August, and the latter parts of June. Doing this will help dehydrate and kill any grub eggs buried in your yard, dramatically reducing how many grubs you’ll experience the following year.

We know it’s not easy to avoid watering your lawn as often during the warmer months, but so long as your grass is in good shape, it should bounce back to full health as soon as you begin watering again.