Funny - I happened to be chatting with "Texasweed" when I read this. TW is a retired Bermuda sod farmer who now lives in AZ. I told him about this thread. He'd be the perfect person to assist you.

OK you have some challenges in the valley with water. Watering rules get thrown out the window in Phoenix. So before I help answer one question please.

Will you have irrigation and can afford to run it everyday?

Otherwise it will just not work out very well. I am up at Prescott and during spring summer and fall we must water the fairways every day, and greens a few times a day. Phoenix is brutal.

For Bermuda in Phoenix I am comfortable saying if you can get 6 hours of direct sun it will do just fine and afternoon shade is great. Deep shade all day i snot going to cut it.

Last comment is I would recommend a different variety of Bermuda for you in Phoenix. Tifway-I aka 419 is more geared for high input sports field and golf courses in Phoenix and takes a lot of work and water. The most popular for residential is Mid Iron. It can take the heat and abuse. If you want something a little more upscale that take the abuse look at Celebration. Additionally Celebration is the most shade tolerant of the Bermuda grasses where as Tifway is the least tolerant.

This post was edited by texas-weed on Mon, Feb 3, 14 at 13:08

See if that pic loads....

Yes on irrigation both installation and use.

I am very happy that you responded TW, your other posts have all been extremely informative. Thanks for the assist there Andy. :-)

The grass will be the rounded off triangle shape, approx 1300sqft, the three circles that intersect and create the rounded corners will be 12ft sprinkler heads and the gaps on the straight edges will be filled in with larger than drawn 10ft half circle spray heads. The circle that is not symetrical with the rest of the lawn will be the tipu, the circle indicates the eventual possible root bulge zone that I wanted to keep concrete away from, same for the two outside the grass area, those will be chinese pistache.

Hope that makes sense and that the picture is clear enough, just got home from a 12hr nightshift. :-)

Current status. :-)

Oh yeah, how do the textures of midiron and celebration compare to each other, I like soft, walk on it barefoot, grass but also realize where I live and prefer grass that will be alive to dead plush grass. :-)

Midiron is medium coarse texture with deep Blue-Green color and soft to the touch.

Celebration is fine texture, dark green and soft feel.

With that said just about every sod farm in the valley carries both plus 419 and Saint Augustine Palmetto for shady area.

In phoenix 419 and TiffSport are professional grasses that need a lot of care.

Midiron and Celebration can be maintained at 1.5 to 2 inches with a rotary mower which means much less frequent mowing and less water. They also do not need as much fertilizer.

Looking at your pictures water will be an issue for you. You do not have any soil, you have gravel and sand mix which does not hold water. Real typical in the valley unless you live west toward Gilbert farm areas.

I intend to be getting a "sod mix" from a "sand" company which will be about 3" deep beneath where the sod is going, to help with the water issues. Will that actually be all that beneficial?

"Sod Mix is made of 60% screened fill dirt, 30% mulch, and 10% sand."

Plus I guess the picture is a little misleading, the gravel was all on top, I had it there to keep down the dust, and the dirt from the trenches looks sandier than it is, probably mostly fill dirt to fix the grade as my comunity was built where a cotton field used to be.

This post was edited by Zogmort on Mon, Feb 3, 14 at 21:45

I intend to be getting a "sod mix" from a "sand" company which will be about 3" deep beneath where the sod is going, to help with the water issues. Will that actually be all that beneficial?

You bet it will help.

Plus I guess the picture is a little misleading, the gravel was all on top, I had it there to keep down the dust, and the dirt from the trenches looks sandier than it is, probably mostly fill dirt to fix the grade as my comunity was built where a cotton field used to be.

Well that is great. That being said is I would remove the gravel and replace with the sod mix. Hard to beat recovered farm land.

Yep, that is why there is that large line of gravel along the far side of the yard, moving out the gravel and about and inch of the topsoil.

Looking into it based on your suggestions the Celebration does sound like my best bet, although the evergreen properties of Palmetto sound tempting too, now for a question. Is there a supplier who you would recommend whi might have celebration? The place I was dealing with provided me with little to no information as compared to what you have in one day, plus they seem unreliable for getting a hold of, don't call back or return emails etc...plus it seems that they do not have celebration anyway....according to their website.

Thanks for all of your help so far!!

Last question for a bit,

What are your feelings toward Palmetto?

It was implied to me that it will perform well in full sun and partial shade alike and that it lasts longer into the winter, but cannot be overseeded....

Everywhere says that Celebration has been replaced with Tifgrand.

Try Grass4Sale.com for Celebration. Another variety to look at and available all over Phoenix is TifGrand which is much like Celebration and somewhat shade tolerant.

I like Palmetto and it is available in Phoenix. Downside is it will take more water than Bermuda, but you do not over seed it in fall as it will stay green or mostly green in winter.

Indirect sun is shade. Remember that it doesn't matter how hot it is in the shade it IS the shade that matters to grass. If you will get less than 5hrs of sun your grass will thin year by year. You will notice it by the 2nd year