In the last 3 years we have sodded our yard twice and seeded once. There are big chunks of lawn where the grass just WON'T stay alive. Yesterday, I peeled back a chunk of sod (installed about 2 months ago, totally dead) and found 13 icky grubs. This was a patch of sod about 1 square foot. Could these nasty little grubs be the reason the grass keeps dying? Anyone know what they are and what to do about them? I'm in Southern California. Thanks!
:)Geegee

Well you are right they are grubs. There are a few solutions that you can use based on how you want to go about it. The first is always a granular chemical or some kind of spray chemical. I moved into my father in laws house about 3 years ago and his lawn had dead spots about 3-4 feet in diameter all over the lawn front and back. I used a product called Eliminator that you can get at any walmart, kmart, agway etc. It is applied through a spreader and then watered in. I would reccomend doing that first. I do one application every spring when the ground thaws out cause I live in PA. Then there is a product called BT Baccilus Thuringiensis or Thuricide that you can get at any farming store or gardening supply store. It is made by Bonide. What this does is you mix the liquid with water and put it into a sprayer with a hose attachment and walk your lawn and cover it good. This stuff is a bacteria thatyour putting into your soil that kills any type of bug larvae and kills anything from years to come that try to lay eggs in your soil. This stuff stays in your soil for like 5 years I am told. The other way that also helped me was I am really into birding and bird watching so I have many feeders and houses in my backyard. The robins especially love to dig and eat these grubs. You want to get rid of these grubs ASAP cause if you dont you will run into the problem I am dealing with now which is Moles cause they loves to feed on the grubs but they tear up your yard. Hope this helps. Any other questions feel free to private post me.

Thanks

Just what I needed to see! Thanks for that grub idea. I have been invaded by grubs and since I wasn't sure. I thought the little holes were squirrel holes. But nooooooooo,,,, I ahve to re-do the front left corner of my yard due to skunks diggin and rippin to get at these littel buggers. yep skunks,lmao....I mowed today and then light raked holy cow, got up under the yuccas and goodness you could smell skunk in there, must have jsut been hangin out. Yuck!
I am going to give this a try... around here if you remove the grubs, skunks don't come in your yard.....grubs yuck,,,skunks well I think we can come up with the same descriptive words....

Thank you! I like the idea about that bacteria thing. I'd rather go natural if possible, because I've got kids and cats, so I'm always wary of poisons. I'm so glad that you mentioned the moles, though! We haven't really been doing anything about it, but now that I know about the moles, we're gonna get on it right away!

We have grubs also and they haul in the skunks. They say our grubs turn into June bugs, not sure about that though.

Well if you are having problems with moles all I have been doing because I have 2 dogs and dont wanna use poisons is figuring out the main tunnel that they are using and you can tell by the size of the hole. I have them diggin around in my flower beds so I got some 1.99 mouse traps and baited them with a little piece of velveeta cheese or peanut butter works too. Trap gets them every time. I have gottenm five so far this month. I also took my hose, even though people say it doesnt work and turned it on full blast and shoved it into the hole. You can see the water raise the soil so you can trak the tunnel but I keep flooding all the holes for a couple mins a piece and they come running out and you just hit them with a shovel. Not too messy, kinda cruel but I like my garden better then them.

We put grub ex down in the spring and the grass has been fine. However I just dug up my rosemary plant from the herb garden and found grubs there. We will have to take care of them too. Oh, our grubs turn into nasty japanese beetles!