Lawn looking like a Leopard?

Did the recent frosts leave your lawn looking like this?  Many times damaged lawn is blamed on insects, but most of the time insects aren't to blame at all.

The majority of insect damage to turf seems to happen during summer months, so anything you are seeing to lawns at the moment is probably not caused by insects.

Leopard spots in the lawn right now is due to frost or light freezes.  Portions of your lawn are just in dormancy, but this wasn't evenly distributed throughout, causing a leopard spot type affect.  The common belief is that the temperature isn't uniform throughout the lawn and it cooled down unevenly - perhaps pockets or warm air were found in the live portions, maybe caused by uneven thatch.

Either way, it may look funny for a while, but eventually that lawn should go completely dormant.  Remember, as we get into the colder temperatures, let those lawns go dormant and stop watering!  They will come back in the Spring when they are ready, but it isn't healthy to try to keep the lawn green and watered all year round.

Whatever you do, now is NOT the time to treat for grubs or chinch bugs!  You'll be wasting money and time and placing unnecessary pesticides into the environment.... and you won't kill anything!