Some simple actions in early July can have a big impact on the appearance of your lawn and landscape later in the season. The first action is to remember this is last call for pinching your Mums, upright Sedums and Asters. A pinch now will keep their size in check for this fall. You’ll have shorter blooming plants able to stand on their own as opposed to tall and “floppy” plants.
Another action is to raise the deck on the mower and keep the lawn properly irrigated to avoid European Chafer and Japanese beetle damage to the lawn later in the season. The female beetles during the feeding period are making intermittent stops to lay their eggs in the lawn. The young grubs that hatch from these eggs are hungry feeders. The female beetles like a closely groomed lawn and the young grubs that hatch will do significant damage to a lawn that is not properly irrigated and root stressed from having the turf cut too short. July is the perfect time to apply imidacloprid to the lawn for year long control “nailing” the young grubs when they hatch. Protect susceptible landscape plants like Roses, Larch, Linden and Hydrangeas by spraying the foliage with insect control so the plants aren’t “swiss cheese” by August. Sprays like Sevin will suppress the damage when the feeding frenzy is occurring. An unprotected plant already being attacked is likely to have “joiners” adding to the fray.
