Yard, turf, and garden pests
Yard and garden pest control
Landscape pests are where people over-apply insecticides and still lose the plant. Grubs under turf, chinch bugs (often misspelled cinch bugs) in hot southern lawns, sod webworms at dusk, and emerald ash borer in ash trees are different jobs. IPM still applies: identify, set a threshold, then treat. Confirm chinch bugs with a float-can test and sod webworms with larvae, not a brown-lawn guess. Beneficial insects are not optional decoration; they are why a blanket spray backfires.
Japanese beetle
Popillia japonica
Japanese beetles are metallic green and copper day-fliers that eat leaves down to lace. The larvae are C-shaped grubs in turf…
White grub (turf)
Scarabaeidae larvae (Japanese beetle, masked chafer, June beetle, and others)
White grubs are C-shaped larvae that eat grass roots. Skunks and raccoons peeling turf are often hunting them. The species…
Chinch bug
Blissus spp.
Chinch bugs suck turf in hot, dry, sunny lawns. Damage starts in the hottest, most stressed patches and spreads. People water…
Sod webworm
Crambinae (several genera)
Sod webworms are the tan moths that flutter across a lawn at dusk. Larvae notch grass and leave green pellets. Damage is often…
Emerald ash borer
Agrilus planipennis
Emerald ash borer killed hundreds of millions of North American ash trees. Adults are small metallic green beetles; larvae snake…
Slug and snail (garden)
Gastropoda (Deroceras, Cornu, and others)
Slugs and snails rasp holes in hostas, lettuce, and seedlings and leave slime trails. They are mollusks, not insects — so many…
Aphid
Aphididae
Aphids are soft-bodied sap suckers that cluster on new growth and excrete honeydew that grows sooty mold and feeds ants. A blast…
Spongy moth
Lymantria dispar
Spongy moth caterpillars can strip oaks in outbreak years. Egg masses are tan and spongy on bark, outdoor furniture, and…
Eastern tent caterpillar
Malacosoma americanum
Eastern tent caterpillars build obvious silk tents in cherry crotches in spring. They look apocalyptic and are usually a…