European chafer beetle battles aren’t going away anytime soon. Watching my son’s soccer team play recently, I overheard two clearly frustrated parents discussing their damaged lawns.
Birds and animals cause extensive damage when they dig up lawns in search of European chafer beetle grubs. So how do we fix the damage? The easiest fix is top-dressing with soil and over-seeding.
For strata complexes this is the most economical way to go. Soil and seed aren’t prohibitively expensive and having torn up lawns is too unsightly to even consider.
Home owners can use the same soil-seed fix. But their smaller lawn areas allow them to consider alternatives. I find that many home-owners get tired of fixing their lawns.
Strata complex fix
So let’s take a look at one strata complex example. In Step one we cleaned up the torn up bits of lawn. At this particular site this had already been done for us. Simply rake it up and haul it away. What’s left looks something like the lawn pictured below.
Step 2
In step two we installed good quality top dressing soil. It has a higher percentage of sand but no annoying rocks. $39/yard from Meadows Landscape in Pitt Meadows. Always buy good soil that is weed-free. Pay for quality. If you’re not sure, ask around.
Cover all damaged bare spots and spread the soil evenly with a hard rake.
Step 3
Over seed with good quality seed. Take care not to splash seed into neighbouring beds. That would lead to unwanted extra weeding. Don’t do it. If there is a breeze, crouch down so you can get closer to the lawn-bed edge. Take your time at this step.
Conclusion
Top dressing and over seeding your chafer damaged lawn is an easy fix that doesn’t have to cost you lots of money. For strata councils with limited budgets this is the way to go.
For home owners, this is also an easy fix but, in practice, many get tired of the constant fixing. Luckily, there are alternatives available to home owners which wouldn’t be practical for strata complexes.
Some of these alternatives have already been published in previous blog posts. Others will be published soon.
Good afternoon. Thanks for this info! Excellent article.