Well I am a sod farmer along the Red River on the TX side so take that for what it is worth. 1. How long should I wait before I mow it the first time? You shouldnÂt wait any longer, it is past time. I am certain you have Tifway-I aka 419 Bermuda. Tifway is best maintained between ½ to 1 inch in height. If you have a rotary type mower lower it all the way down which should be around 1 to 1-1/2 inches depending on the brand. Tifway is best maintained with a reel type that can go down to ½ inch. The other thing to remember is Tifway (all Bermuda grass is an aggressive grower and requires to be cut every few days 2. I have read that when I mow it, I should keep the level high. Is this true? No, where ever you heard that from is clueless! 3. I purchased a bag of Vigro fertilizer for new grass. Should I apply it before or after I mow the lawn? Well what does the bag ratio say? Something like 10-0-5 or what? Regardless it was the wrong type. Your very first application in the spring when the grass is about 50% green should be a ratio of 3-1-2 (15-5-10) or 4-1-2 (20-5-10). Then every 30 to 45 days should use a straight nitrogen product like 39-0-0. Lesco is in you area and has every one of these ratios in a slow release urea formulation. Lou was right about what to use, but I think the price is much lower in the neighborhood of $22 to $27 for a 50 pound bag. Box stores like Home Depot also carry Lesco in limited formulations You can use what you have for the first application and the trick is to apply 1-pound of nitrogen for every 1000 square feet. To figure that out take the first number in the ratio and divide it into 100. So for example if the ratio on the bag says 10-0-10, 100/10=10. So you would apply 10-pounds of product to every 1000/ft2 4. There are several weeds growing. Is it ok to use Weed-Be-Gone? Wait till the weather is warmed up good and the grass is actively growing before using and post-emergence. FWIW if you properly mow, water, and fertilize the weeds will disappear on there own as Bermuda will choke most any thing out.

I've been growing and maintaining Bermuda, St. Augustine, and other grass on my own since about 1961 so I'm not totally inexperienced. I know that tx weed has a sod farm. That also means he has good soil, equipment, irrigation, and time to handle anything nature can throw at him. The average homeowner usually has marginal soil, sometimes very little irrigating capability, little time, and can't always mow often enough. Mowing Bermuda at less than one inch in this 95 degree heat will leave your yard brown.....unless you have almost perfect soil, great irrigation, and can mow and fertilize it often enough. I was mowing my Bermuda yard with a 9 foot Jacobsen reel type fairway mower earlier this year at about 7/8" and needed to mow everyday. I was cutting off a half inch or more everyday. If I waited several days I'd have to use a rotary mower and then the fairway mower because the grass was growing so fast. The best way to help your grass survive this heat wave is to raise the mowing height some, water often, mow often so as to not chop too much off at once.

Steamside, Tifsport is a very high-end Bermuda grass, thus requires very high-end maintenance. It is just one-step short of a golf green quality. It can be used as a golf green in lower end courses. Its main use is as fairways, tee-boxes, sports fields, museums, commercial properties, and high-end residential Tifsport needs to be kept between 5/16 and ¾ inches using a reel mower. It is such a dense grass going any higher will cause it to thin and yellow. Sound familiar? So it needs to be mowed three times a week just like a golf course. You can stair-step it down if you wish, but get aggressive about it. Another source of the yellowing is you are starving the grass to death. Tifsport is a very aggressive feeder and almost impossible to over fertilize. If you laid it in May, have not fertilized, you are behind 2 or 3 applications already. So waiting to the end of August is just asking for terrible looking grass and weeds. You have a few options for fertilizing: Apply ¼ application of fast release every week. Apply ½ application rate of fast release every 2-weeks. Apply full application of slow release every 30 days using what is called 75% sow release, 25% fast release. OK here is what the slow/fast urea and nitrate mean. Commercial fertilizers are made from two sources, Urea and Ammonia Nitrate. Fast release formulas can be either Urea or Ammonia Nitrate. Most professionals prefer Urea because it is an organic compound and does not contribute to salinity of the soil like nitrate does. Slow release formulas are mostly formulated from urea by coating it with sulfur compounds to slow down the release of nitrogen dissolving with water. So when I say 75/25 or some other ratio I mean 75% slow release and 25% fast release. The fast release works as soon as water is applied and last about a week, while the slow release carries you though for a few more weeks. Since you live in Atlanta, locate your nearest Lesco dealer. Lesco is a professional lawn care chain that carries fertilizers custom blended for your specific area. Right now you want to be using a nitrogen only product like 000777 (29-0-0). Cone either this fall or next spring you will want to use a complete fertilizer like 15-5-10 or 20-5-10 for one application only each year.. Welcome to high-end lawn care, hope you know what you got yourself into.

Agree. All the bermuda I see in Bandera is as dormant (brown) as it could be. St Augustine is still green, but it is not growing, so that's sort of a pre-dormancy for St Aug. So to answer your question, you likely won't need to water at all until April when the lawn awakens. With the tiny little roots I would not fertilize until early May. Assuming you have a bunch of weeds sprouting in April, go ahead and spray with Weed-B-Gon and you might put down a preemergent herbicide to limit the crabgrass. Bermuda and crabgrass like the same conditions, so that can be a battle the first year until the bermuda becomes more dense. When it awakens, it will come in like gangbusters. You should mow it 3x per week at your mower's lowest setting to keep ahead of the fast growth. When bermuda is allowed to get tall, it thins out and can become even more weedy. Mowing very low will sort of train it go grow horizontally instead of vertically. Once that fast growth slows down, then you can start fertilizing monthly with a high N and low P and K fertilizer. That might be early May. If you have to irrigate in the spring, follow these guidlines... Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall.