Question
Zip code 18507

I have a well established lawn (1 acre).  I have a problem with thinning areas due to grubs, not to mention some areas along the driveway that seem to be a depository for weed seeds.  I need to re-seed the thinning areas and also control the weeds and grubs but I'm unsure if one will halt the grass seeds from growing.  Thank you

Answer
You are in USDA Zone 5, for future reference.  You grow Cool Season Grass and it sounds like you have a nice big slice of property, the kind we all dream of, far from the madding crowds.

But you get snow and ice.  Do you use Salt during Winter to melt those?  Very bad for Grass.  Very good for Weeds.

Depending on the kind of driveway you have, it may heat the Soil bordering on the Grass severely.  Enough to wipe it out.  Bad for Grass.  Good for Weeds.

Then you have this Grubs problem.  Grubs are gourmet food for Purple Grackles, Red-Winged Blackbirds and Orioles.  If you have too many Grubs, you don't have enough Birds.

How come?

Let's get to the point here, OK?

Herbicides and Pesticides kill more than pests.  They kill everything with a nervous system.  Small doses may not kill them, they just mess them up.  What happens when you feed a Bird Round-Up?  Probably the same thing that happens when you spill it on a factory worker who makes it.  They get sick, sometimes they die.  There is no antidote, by the way, for Glyphosphate poisoning.  You can read an account of an accidental poisoning of this stuff, 'Glyphosate herbicide poisoning experience in New Zealand,' in the 1992 New Zealand Medical Journal.  But you won't read that anywhere that the Round-Up people advertise.  It would be too expensive.  Frankly, I'm surprised you can read it here.

Not to confuse the subject, but if you happen to pick up a June 2002 issue of the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives, peruse the article, 'Birth Defects, Season of Conception, and Sex of Children Born to Pesticide Applicators Living in the Red River Valley of Minnesota, USA'.  This is a report on research on certain herbicides and fungicides conducted at the Environmental Medicine and Pathology Laboratory.  The study was initiated, they wrote, because scientists had recorded 'increased chromosome rearrangements in G-banded lymphocytes and/or molecular rearrangements of the human T-cell V(d)J region.'  Not a good thing.  In this study, they found that 'children born to male pesticide applicators' had the highest rate of birth defects in Minnesota's Red River Valley farmland.  'Conceptions in Spring resulted in significantly more children with birth defects than found in any other season,' they noted.  FYI, Herbicides are applied, often heavily, in the Spring at Wheat, Sugarbeet and Potato farms.

'Adverse neurologic and neurobehavioral developmental effects [was] clustered among the children born to applicators of the fumigant Phosphine.... Use of the herbicide Glyphosate yielded an OR of 3.6 (CI, 1.3-9.6) in the neurobehavioral category.'  Round-Up IS Glyphosphate.

So if it's rearranging the chromosomes of people, what do you think it's doing to your Birds?

Just assuming you are casually using these chemicals, of course. I'd like to think you are not.  But your Grubs population explosion speaks for itself.  Because when you Chemically treat your Lawn, when you create a Toxic Waste Dump around your house, you don't just kill Grubs and Fungus and Weeds.

You destroy Butterflies.  Beneficial Bacteria.  Earthworms. Crickets.  You hurt the Birds who need them to survive.  All the
things that make great Soil and beautiful Gardens... gone.

What to do now?

Hmmm....

Funny thing, but look around your neighborhood - have you ever noticed that there are always a few houses where nobody seems to care about their Lawn?

Once in a while, they mow.  Fertilize, never.  They don't treat their lawns to Grubkiller or Weedkiller or Funguskiller.

Yet, the Grass around their house looks OK.  Not gorgeous, but somewhat decent.  A few Weeds here and there.  But their Lawns NEVER get sick.

Weird, huh?

Kellie, the Lord works in mysterious ways....

Instead of "purifying" your lawn with those products that make Scotts closing stock prices go up, you can build up your soil, instead.

Don't put any more Agent Orange on your Grass.  You want more Microbes.  You want Ground Beetles -- which prey on Grubs.  You want Birds, which by the way also love to eat Weed seeds.   They all keep each other in check.  Birds eat bugs.  Unless you kill the Birds and/or destroy enough Bugs that the Birds get tired of foraging for food and head someplace more Bird-friendly.  That's the deal, plain and simple, Kellie.

Grubs are only a problem when you don't have Birds.  Or if you have destroyed the predatory Fungi and good Bacteria and Protozoa in the Soil that keep their populations under control.  Tell that to the salesperson at Home Depot and see if they have any clue what you're talking about.

Think over your options.  Don't be fooled into applying Grubskiller.  Stay away from the WeedkKller.  After all, the Good Lord did not give any of this stuff to Adam.  If they didn't need it in the Garden of Eden, you don't need it in Pennsylvania.

Instead, get yourself a Birdbath.  Mow and water your Lawn all Summer religiously.  Stop using the Snowmelt and Icemelt in the Winter and  plant some heat-loving border plants up and down the driveway.  Upgrade your landscaping with some native plants -- no, not the Poison ivy that settler John Bartram recommended people grow back in 1783, but some of the others that need very little attention to make the Birds and the Bees happy as clams. And relax.

Lots of stuff to digest here.  Any questions?