Did I say next weekend?

[velvetpage]

First, the before pictures, which we remembered to take this time:






Now, the nasty surprise in the lawn - we picked out as many as we could, because the nasty buggers eat roots:



Now, the finished product, at least at the side, between the two lawns. The ugly bushes in the foundation garden will have to stay until Saturday. From front to back, we have lavender, picked out by Elizabeth; Sweet William, picked out by Claire who kept lunging for it; Marcus Sage, picked out by me; and a peony, chosen jointly by me and Elizabeth. We're going to plant annuals around them in a few weeks, just to fill them in a bit, and in the fall we'll plant some spring bulbs around them to give some early colour while the plants are coming up.

Comments

[tormentedartist.livejournal.com]

What are those things ? They look like shrimp.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

They're grubs. As in, baby beetles. And they eat roots. They appear to absolutely love my lawn, which is infested with them. This probably explains why our lawn has always looked so sickly. Piet knew they were there, but I didn't. My stepdad, who prefers organic methods when possible, asked how I felt about chemical warfare when he saw them.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

You can try seeding your lawn with alfalfa or clover as a mixed ground cover; both are legumes which grubs aren't so keen on I gather, and their root systems travel deeper than most grasses. Of course, then you won't have a "perfect looking lawn" and your neighbourhood association might get upset...

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

We've already got more wild clover than anything else in our lawn. There's no neighbourhood association to worry about.

[toad-hall.livejournal.com]

i stick grubs on a sunny rock or a plate and the birds (mainly robins) come and eat them for me. very satisfying.

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

I was going to say, "Time t'go fishin'!"

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

We left a large shallow container of them out for the birds and night life to enjoy. Yum yum!

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what we did. The next-door neighbour wanted us to kill them quick, so we put them out of sight of his house. :)

[urban-homestead.livejournal.com]

My DOG loves to eat them! Mmmm... soil shrimp...

[catarzyna.livejournal.com]

Those grubs are making me twitchy. Good luck with your gardening. I cleared out another pile of vines, twigs and dead leaves this afternoon from mine.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

They made me twitchy, too. We had a few neighbourhood kids hanging around, and gave the science lessons about grubs by getting them to pick them out for us. Elizabeth liked picking them up and then dropping them with a squeal. I wouldn't even pick them up with my bare hands. Gardening gloves were made for situations like that.

[merlyn4401.livejournal.com]

Nice grubs. :)

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

It looks deceptively small in the picture :)

Some more info on grubs (http://ipm.ncsu.edu/AG271/corn_sorghum/white_grubs.html). Apparently they're not in active feeding right now, that's more in the late summer. They suggest treating the ground for them then, as they burrow over a meter down in the soil for the winter! Also, maturation can take 2-4 years, so I suspect you'd have to treat for several years in a row to make much of a difference. The other thing was definitely a caterpillar of some sort, none of the grub pictures I looked at were similar

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

That flower bed looks eerily like a freshly dug grave. ;)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

You have the mind of a writer. Oh, wait. :)

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I have the mind of someone who listens to old time detective radio shows, reads mystery novels, and watches Perry Mason. ;)