Earthworm Mounds and Damage To Lawns – Tips

Earthworm Mounds In Lawns – What Happens When Earthworms Damage Your Lawn and How To Get Your Lawn Back On Track.

Here is a request for help from a LawnGreen fan – “I have a TifTuf couch lawn and have a severe problem of too many earthworms that are causing castings and destroying the look of the lawn, are you able to provide a treatment to rid my soil of so many worms without harming the lawn?”

See below for my answer!

First things first, the evidence of earthworms and their castings (aka soil mounds and mud mounds) are a sign of healthy soil. The benefits to your lawn and soil include automatic soil aeration, improved soil quality and organic matter.

Unfortunately, for us lawn lovers, earthworm activity resulting in tunnelling and soil castings provide a few headaches including:

1. With earthworms tunneling underground and under the lawn there is a tendency (especially in periods of wet weather) for the soil to collapse leaving the lawn uneven.
2. This earthworm activity tends to occur around late Summer to Mid Autumn and in periods of heavy rain. In this period the lawn’s growth rate is slowing down so the soil castings become more evident and this becomes a problem with people and animals dragging soil casting dirt through the house.

Earthworms are a protected species, sort of! So all lawn / turf products are designed not to hurt earthworms. So there is no silver bullet that will take out earthworms in your lawn.

However, there are a few things you can do, and understand, to help reduce and minimise the impact and population of earthworms, these are:

1. Earthworms tend to migrate to the lawn soil layers with excessive soil moisture (especially after heavy rain events), so initially best to turn off all irrigation and water supply to the lawn towards the end of Summer. Earthworms tend to create their soil castings with soil moisture saturation, with less moisture the earthworms will tunnel deeper in the soil to find moisture
2. When soil castings are present wait until they dry out and rake them back into the grass
3. Best to mow the lawn higher to help disguise the presence of soil castings and mounds
4. Next Spring, around late October, you may need to top dress the lawn with River Sand to even out the lawn levels. We don’t like top soil / turf underlay as they go hard in the summer sun.

If you need new turf (including complete soil preparation, turf supply and installation) whether its any one of the many Aussie Buffalo grasses or any other grasses like Couch, Kikuyu and Zoysia then give these guys a call at https://lawnsolutionsaustralia.com.au/ or https://www.myhometurf.com.au/

Whether you engage a Lawn Care Service like ours or not it is really important to look after your lawn properly. You can save yourself a lot of grief by downloading our 1 Page Lawn Care Cheat Sheet at https://LawnGreen.com.au/The-Lawn-Lovers-Cheat-Sheet-the-complete-1-page-Lawn-Guide/ – this Cheat Sheet is a great summary of what to do and what not to do for the novice or passionate Lawn Lover.

Earthworm Mounds – Lots of luck with your lawn repair!