The humble black lawn beetle cops a lot of flack and completely unnecessary blame for being a lawn vandal which it most often is not in almost all cases whereby it becomes the accused to be put on trial and sentence carried out upon it.
So many times over so many years have I heard the lawn beetle being blamed for so much lawn damage or lawn problems which people then attribute to it. The lawn beetle it seems is the number one fall-guy to take the blame for every possible lawn malady. And yet not once have I heard of anyone complaining about lawn beetle problems even consider looking at themselves as being the possible vandal of their own lawns.
So bear with me, as I tell a quick short lawn beetle blame game story.
Because I really want to put this old myth to bed once and for all.
Lawn Beetle Blame Game
I recently came across a nice lady who asked me about the possibility of lawn beetles in her lawn. Her concern was that the lawn was brown and patchy in places, and so like many of us she went straight to the number one blame culprit… lawn beetles. It seems so many of us have been trained with or grew up with the “blame the beetle” game, and like other poor lawn theories this too needs to be debunked somewhat.
The problem with the lawn in question was actually several problems combined together, and none had anything to do with lawn beetles, instead the lawn problems were the homeowner’s fault entirely.
It was the middle of a hot Summer, so we’re talking about peak lawn growth rates, now add to that overwatering of the lawn which caused the lawn to grow very fast, there may have been fertiliser involved too but I didn’t get as far as asking about that. Now add on top of this fast growing lawn the fact that it had been several weeks between lawn mowings, perhaps a month or more.
So now we have a very long, dense, heavily thatched, overgrown Couch lawn which then eventually gets mowed, not too short but still with the majority of leaf removed and without possibility of not having to also cut into the raised thatch layer too. Add in some very hot days in the same time period and the result is a browned off lawn that looks patchy and sick and dying. And not a beetle in sight.
And then following on from this initial problem, the ongoing overwatering of the lawn which was not matched equally with lawn mowing requirements meant that this problem kept hanging around, whereby the lawn was always thatched and overgrown and then cut back with lawn mowing too infrequently, and so the lawn remained in a permanent state of looking in poor health, brown and patchy everywhere.
And she remained convinced there was a lawn beetle problem.
I ‘tried’ to convince her otherwise.
This is just one example, I’ve heard many many other accusations raised about every possible lawn problem, all being blamed on lawn beetles, when there was no lawn beetle problem at all.
The Truth About Lawn Beetles
All lawns have lawn beetles !! All of them !!
So just because we notice a lawn problem and then see a lawn beetle on our lawn quite by accident 3 days later does not equate to a lawn beetle problem causing the original lawn concern at hand.
In almost all cases, any lawn problems we may be experiencing will overwhelmingly be due to something else entirely, and may most likely be at our own fault too. There are so many things that can go wrong with lawns, from disease, to scalping from mowing, to dry soils, to incorrect application of herbicides, to army worm, to sunburn… and the list continues… with none of it due to black lawn beetles, and much of it attributable to our own lawn management or mismanagement practices.
Lawn beetles are a wonderful friend to our lawns in most cases, they aerate the soil for us, which allows lots of oxygen to circulate through the soil to get to the roots of the turf, in truth lawn beetles are our silent partner in maintaining a healthy lawn.
But, like everything else in this world, a little in moderation of everything good is wonderfully beneficial for us, however like everything else good… too much of a good thing also becomes a bad thing. And yes, occasionally our lawns can develop too many lawn beetles and they can cause some damage.
However, we would want to not be seeing just one beetle, or even three beetles on our lawn, we’d want to see a dozen or more of them all at the same time on a small area of lawn, and we’d want to see real lawn damage alongside a lot of beetles on the surface of the lawn to even begin to suspect that lawn beetle is a problem to our lawns. A dozen lawn beetles on top of the soil indicates a lot more underneath the soil.
And if the lawn is severely damaged, and if we are regularly seeing an abundance of lawn beetles around the lawn, then yes it may be time to apply a treatment for lawn beetle.
A powdered form of lawn beetle herbicide is cheaply available at most garden nurseries. It is applied to the lawn at manufacturers recommendations and is then usually watered into the lawn.
The truth of the lawn beetle problem will become apparent over the next few days. If we see an abundance of dead beetles on top of our lawn then we were right in our conclusions this time. If however we see only one or two beetles, or even a dozen beetles, then we were wrong and we just killed off some great little lawn helpers. Lawn beetles will almost always come to the surface of the lawn to die when they are poisoned, so a dozen dead lawn beetles now would indicate that that’s all there was, not many at all, and certainly no problem to our lawns.
When it comes to lawn problems, forget the lawn beetle almost entirely, always first look at all other possibilities as the cause. By all means investigate for beetles too, but there needs to be a lot of them present in order for them to be any real concern to us.
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