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Talkback: Cockchafers
gardeningfantic
Posts: 1,019
in Talkback
we have these in our garden all the time during season.. thou not so many this year as previous years.. o/h calls them maybugs.. but they are large and amazing bugs..
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I also found a couple of these, had to go online to identify them! Don't their grubs do loads of damage to our lawns?
We have very sandy soil and I am worrying now as to how to deal with these things....I understand the adults themselves don't actually do any harm other than laying their eggs, that is!
Am I worrying unneccesarily?
Back in the days when there were thousands of these lovely creatures, they probably did a fair bit of damage to lawns etc. Now there are so few of them
around any damage they do is marginal, and they are fantastic! I love them
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Yes, they are handsome critters think I will leave the lawn alone after reading more about them. If a few blades of grass die off I can reseed.
It is the larvae that do the damage - or rather the crows, who will rip a lawn apart in order to feast on them. Our large front lawn looked like a churned-up football pitch two years ago and we were devastated. We have used the specific pro ado product ever since and had no problems. I quite like the look of the adults too - but can't forget how our lawn looked.
What is a 'pro ado' product? Do you mean Provado which most gardeners are avoiding because of the damage it causes to bees?
The birds that attacked your lawn were probably rooks. I wonder which do more damage? Chimicals which damage bees or birds seeking food?
I noticed this May bug on one of our standard Roses the other day
Pam LLx
Magnificent
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
badgers dug up my front lawn to get to get to these grubs this year. I know it was a hard winter for them but really badgers all my lawn. But lemons-lemonade etc etc i planted daffodil bulbs in the holes ( a bag of 250 bulbs wasn't enough they did such a job getting to them) roll on spring but a shame lets hope some survived.....
Hi, David, I had a similar experience, first time I saw one was in the lounge, it crawled out from the fire place and then took off flying round the room, if the door hadn't have been open I'd have left the outline of my body in a closed door.
Thinking it was a mutant cockroach or rare species I caught it and rang the university only to be told it was a maybug which can swarm here in heat generated from motorway traffic and was harmless. The guy was ever so nice, even thanked me for calling.