Grass weeds have a habit of growing vigorously in late summer and autumn, which provides ideal leatherjacket conditions. Leatherjackets may also be revealed in lawnsby soaking with water and covering with material impervious to light, such as black polythene. We have however taken your advice and I have plenty of plants and trees due to arrive in the next 2-3 weeks ready for planting. If you still have a fair amount of grass coverage, it may be possible to revive the lawn by undertaking mechanical lawn renovation during late spring or summer to repair the damage caused by these hungry critters.

Tipula paludosa, known as crane flies or daddy-longlegs, emerge from the soil in enormous numbers during late summer. Leave it at least overnight and then when you lift it in the morning they should all be sitting on the soil surface. If a large population of grubs are found by a badger, fox or even birds, the subsequent damage to a lawn can be devastating! By encouraging more birds into my garden, I’ve reduced leatherjacket numbers to an acceptable level. Once the leatherjacket has consumed enough nutrients and grown to a suitable size, it will pupate – this is the final stage of the lifecycle prior to the grub transforming into a daddy-longlegs.It is not unusual for recently laid turf to suffer from Leather Jacket infestation, especially in the first year or two since it was laid. Hi, thanks for the useful information, we have a large infestation of Leatherjackets this year especially! EU legislation has restricted the use of pesticides but you can employ organic solutions which don’t require a pesticide certificate. Had a very bad leather jacket infestation early spring which pretty much destroyed the whole lawn by the time I realised what the problem was.

To ensure accuracy, we asked Elizabeth Smith to review and fact-check the content before we published it. Having destroyed the leatherjacket ,the nematodes multiply and are released back into the soil to hunt down more leatherjackets.

If you have any success with any of these controls, or have any other ideas or suggestions in keeping their numbers down, I would love to hear about it. Dobies strives to ensure that all its plants are delivered to you in the perfect condition for planting. When fully grown they reach approximately 3-4 cm in length and then stay within their burrows for about 6-8 weeks before making their way to the soil surface to pupate and the cycle repeats.