New Tree and Dealing with Grubs

Monday I was out on my back porch transplanting some of my seedling when the doorbell rang.   It was visit for the gardener I hire once in a while to cut my grass and clean up the garden in general.  A week or two ago he had pulled out a vine in my garden bed and took some weeds out of the lawn.  He mentioned that he had some trees available and if I wanted one.  These trees are known to be hardy to the El Paso region.   So I told him yes.  My backyard is a good size and there is not a shade spot in site.  He had the trees ready and I went ahead and picked the one I liked and he planted it in my garden.  Its pictured on the left.  Now when he brought it it had a lot more branches on it and it was really a lovely tree.   I asked him if it needed pruning so it could grow up he said yes and that's what he did to it.   I jokingly told him that he left it bare.   He said it would be fine though.   I'll just have to trust him and hopefully in a few years I'll have some nice shade in my backyard and my lawn won't need so much water anymore.

While he was digging the hole however he discovered an bug in my lawn.  It looked like a fat short worm.   He couldn't give me the name of it but said it would eat the roots of my lawn.   This concerned be because back in 2007 I planted a very nice Southern Red Oak in another section of my lawn.   It grew very nicely except this past year it wilted and ultimately dried up completely.  It seems to be coming back from the ground as four sticks are coming up next to where the trunk used to be.  So I may still have a Southern Red Oak in my lawn, which I loved because the leaves would turn red in the fall.  Its such a beautiful effect.

So back to the bug.   I Googled garden soil worms.   I got a bunch of earthworms and that's not what I was looking for.   I did get a few grubs.  The little bug did look like a grub.   Yup an ugly little grub.   These guys eat the grass roots.

Last year I remember my front lawn wasn't quite as green.   So was my mom's lawn at her house.   My sister decided that there were bugs in the lawn and applied some lawn garden insecticide to both my mom's and my lawn.   The lawn seemed to perk up a bit even thought it was already late season.  Now last year I had neglected my back yard lawn as watering is tedious work because I have no sprinklers in the back.  It is likely that the grubs traveled from my front lawn to my back lawn or I might have had grubs in my back lawn to begin with.   Either way these things have got to go.   I would hate for them to get at my vegetables and I think they might have already attached one of my laurels.  So first chance I get I'm heading to Home Depot or Lowes to get grub killer.   I will not allow them to kill my garden.