Question
Splendor in the grass? Not at my house! We have little wiggly things under the grass that my ex says are "grubs". Before I pour what you call "toxic waste" on the lawn (which I do not domyself btw) is there another way to get rid of ugly grubs? What is wrong with them and are they bad for the grass? Are they really grubs?

Answer
Wonderful movie, have you seen Splendor in the Grass? Really incredible, rent it on DVD and listen to the commentary. Much more complicated than you would think. And Warren Beatty was incredible.

But back to the matter at hand...

The wiggly things under the grass are Wonderful, Linda!  God's creatures, leave them there.  If you start putting down Bad Chemicals you will kill the creatures plus you will kill the Bird Breakfast, and even worse the Birds may eat them anyway and then you will be killing them too.

Unless the grubs are out of control, they are a good sign that your soil is in wonderful shape.  Stay away from Toxic Waste.

If you are saying you have a lawn service, you should get them with the program.  Tell them you need to know EVERYTHING AT LEAST ONE WEEK BEFORE THEY APPLY IT to your grass.  Fertilizer, Grubkiller, Weedkiller, everything.  Read the label, write the main ingredients down ( you need a lot of space for that because it is usually 2 words and each of them is 35 letters long).  Then email me with the information and I will tell you what it does to people, places and things in your garden.  These are very, very, very scary things that they use --- and the scariest part is that landscapers are licensed to put on THE MOST POISONOUS chemicals, much more than the awful stuff we can buy at Home Depot.

If you are on Long Island, a visit to Old Westbury's Hicks Nursery on Jericho Turnpike/Rte25 will get you acquainted with their Organic Gardening section.  They have Greensand, Bonemeal, an entire section of Espoma products and others.  It is an awesome, awesome store and VERY pro-Organics, unlike Martin Viette in Old Brookville which no longer has an Organics section and mainly pushes its own landscaping department.

Hopefully that will change someday.  For now, though, the Summer of 2006, Hicks is IT.

Home Depot sells "grub killer" products.  They know NOTHING about gardening.  And even less about the side effects of grub killer.  And even less than that about what happens to the people who put this stuff on people's lawns for a living.  Go figure.