QUESTION
I write this e-mail as I am having really big problems with my lawn.
I moved into my new home last year and the rear garden had been turfed prior
to my arrival and it looked great. I about March/ April I started getting bald
patches appearing in my lawn. I did some research and found that a neighbour
had a similar problem that cost him his entire lawn. The culprits were found
to be " Leather Jackets" or Crane Fly Larvae that were coming out
at night and promptly eating my lawn. I checked this out one evening and as
thought
I did have crane fly larvae eating my grass. I tried re-seeding the bald patches
but they did not take and I now have a patchy lawn. Now that the crane fly
have all died off, I will no doubt have a lawn full of larvae waiting to hatch
next
season only to finish my lawn off. My question is this:
Do you sell a pesticide that I can water into the garden that will kill the larvae
now while they are in their dormant state and go some way to giving my lawn a
chance to recover next year?
This being the case do you provide a turfing/repair service to fix my lawn?
ANSWER
In order to control the larvae soak the affected area of the lawn with water,
and cover with sacking or black plastic sheeting for a day to bring the leather
jackets to the surface. They can then be removed and killed. Use Carbaryl against
newly hatched larvae in early to mid autumn. Problems are worse following wet
autumns. Unfortunately we do not provide a turf repair service.