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Help please!
juliet.goldschmidt
Posts: 2
Hello fellow gardeners,
Whilst preparing and tidying up my garden this weekend for spring, I found these little friends in a pot with strawberry plants.
Does anyone happen to know what they are?
Hubby left them out for the birds to snack on, but we still have no clue what they might be..
Thank you for any info!!
. 
0
Posts
They're chafer grubs - normally a grassland/lawn "pest". They mature into cockchafers aka maybugs which, like the larvae, are huge.
Thank you so much!!
Just googled them.. think I'll get rid of the whole content of that container just in case there was any left in the pot..
Nooo !!!! Don't kill them
They are cicada grubs!!! They take 17 years to mature.
And after they mature, they live for a few days and die.
These might be a decade old, for all we know. Please leave them be. They live on old, decaying matter. They are harmless
No cicadas in the UK Vishu
However, if they were I'd agree with you to let them be. We have stag beetles in the UK which have a similar life cycle ... the larrvae live in rotting wood ... they're becoming quite rare now.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
You're very welcome.
I shouldn't worry too much - I've never heard of them in containers before, must have been a desperate mother maybug!
Oh, sorry, I didn't know. I killed a cicada grub once. I thought it was dangerous or something. I regret till date. Even remember when it happened. It was October of 2013
I have heard of stag beetles. It sad what urbanisation is doing to our environment.
Last edited: 21 February 2017 14:52:23
That's fine Vishu - I bet there's plenty we don't know about where you live too
That's why a forum like this is so good - the more we share the more we learn 
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.