Leather jacket infestation - anyone have experience with this?

Man of Honour
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
8,492
Location
West Coast of Scotland
Our back lawn was perfect last summer. I regularly cut the grass and it was in good condition. Over the winter it deteriorated to a serious extent. It has now got patches and dead areas where these pests are eating the roots of the grass. I had someone have a quick look and he diagnosed the problem for me. He also recommended a way to deal with them. He says you can buy a product off the shelf which will kill them. But I'm reading mixed reports. Has anyone any advice? After killing the pest I then need to reseed the dead areas. So I'm going to need seed, some tools, (I have very few) and maybe some other stuff.
 
Associate
Joined
4 Oct 2004
Posts
1,277
There isn't any product you can buy that will touch your Leather Jackets i'm afraid. Try putting down a dark tarpaulin and leaving overnight. Handpick the bugs that show on the surface.
 
Caporegime
Joined
21 Jun 2006
Posts
38,372
also they will just come back if your neighbours are also infested (which is likely).

best to get some strong grass which grows a lot in the shade. fescue is good stuff. i bought homebase own brand stuff it's £5 and covers 150 square metres or something like that. i took the full £5 box and spread it over 4 square metres. grass is now thriving.

to plant grass seeds is simple. water ground thoroughly the day before so the ground is easy to dig. dry soil is a nightmare to work with so make sure you give it a good soaking the day before. overwater it and then some more.

then you want to take the top 1-3 inches and dig it up and turn it over. then you want to get a rake and rake it all around to break it up.

then you want to throw liberal amounts of seed all over it and then use the rake again to get the seeds 1 inch deep by just moving the soil about.

after that you want to walk over the soil liberally like a herd of buffalo's would normally do in nature. then water it daily for the first week. the first 3 days you want to overwater it to get the seeds out of their shells. after 3 days lessen the amount of water. then after 2 weeks stop watering completely this will promote the roots to grow deeper to get water.
 
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