"Just be patient for now. You will be rewarded for you effort. Just be sure to feed, water, and mow it properly." I only wanted to get the 1st mow done because of how much taller the weeds were. I wanted to mow it down so it doesnÂt start to look like a jungle ha-ha...I will be patient, as far as feed and water...It has been 23 days since i spread starter fertilizer when I spread the seed, I also water twice a day. 1. Should i continue to water twice daily? 2. When and what type of fertilizer should be added? A side note: Like i said i have been watering twice daily for the last 4 days but prior to that 3 times a day, i noticed yesterday that i had a lot of places where the ground has cracks! Is that because there isnÂt grass in place? I know it has been 99 for ever and my backyard is full sun from dawn until dusk. Should i water 3 times instead? When i water, I have 4 stations and run them about 30-45 minutes each at 6pm but only about 15-20 minutes each at 6am. Should I change anything I am doing? Thanks again for your tips and advice!

Okay guys. I know the Bermuda looks terrible but I've just started the regimen. Thank you so much for all the help. I just recently received my soil test and started to really get into and face the cold hard facts that my grass is in bad shape so, I'm on the wagon now, the lawn wagon. I understand that dallisgrass is hard to kill. I just started doing the 36-0-0 fertilizer with Milorganite. I'm thinking of getting the alfalfa pellets next week for it. Dchall I guess I'm putting the cart before the horse thinking overrun. I'm just glad I've found this site for the help you're all giving me. I've been getting a better understanding of how this Bermuda works from reading these threads. I don't have a reel mower but bought a new blade. I hope to one day be able to show you before and after pics of my yard. Let me know if you recommend anything else outside of what I just named to apply to my lawn. I'm open for suggestions. This soil test says to do these applications monthly. I wonder if I could do it every 2 weeks until it looks better. What say you? 36-0-0 every 2-3 weeks?

We really need a picture to identify the unknown grass. I really do not think it can Saint Augustine unless: You have shade issues. You are not mowing, feeding, and watering per Bermuda maintenance schedules. Otherwise SA is not capable of overtaking Bermuda

Tilling would have been the wrong thing to do, especially for bermuda, so don't hate on your installer. He did it right. Still the surface is not level. You can deal with that in December or wait until next June. The grass either needs to be completely dormant or growing like crazy. Your soil is not likely to be compacted. You can drive bulldozers over it all day long and it will not compact...unless the soil is saturated with water first. If the soil was saturated and then mechanically compressed, that would cause the particles of soil to squeeze the air out and that is the definition of compacted soil. Bricks are made of compacted clay. Adobe is made of compacted silt and sand. Almost no yards are truly compacted. However, many (MANY) yards are hard from a lack of adequate biology. New yards are especially prone to this because they don't get watered, fertilized with organics, and don't have a history of grass growing in them. Here's how to fix yours fast. ...and when I say fast, I mean in 3 weeks. Spray it with shampoo. Shampoo is a surfactant that will allow moisture to penetrate much deeper into the soil. When that happens the microbes in the soil have a more hospitable environment (cooler and moister) in which to thrive. It is the microbes that soften the soil for you. The shampoo application rate is 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. If you have 3,000 square feet, put 9 ounces into a hose end sprayer, fill it with water, and try to spray it evenly until the sprayer bottle is empty. You can repeat this as often as you want to, but wait for 3 weeks before you decide to repeat. Before you spray it test the soil by pushing a screw driver into it. Do that before you water and after. Then spray the yard and apply a full 1/2 to 1 inch of water all at one time. You'll have to time how long to leave the sprinkler on yourself. Do that by placing cat food or tuna cans around the yard and time how long it takes to fill them. I can tell by looking at your (dry) yard that 25 minutes is not nearly long enough. Mine takes 8 hours with turbo oscillator sprinklers on a 3/4-inch hose. That time to water 1 inch is the time you should reset your sprinklers for. Once you know that number, reset the timer and set it to water only one day per week. Bermuda in Fresno should be able to handle one day a week watering easily. I just visited a St Augustine lawn in Phoenix that only gets water once a week, so you can do it with bermuda. When the soil is right it will be very soft when moist and very firm when dry. The shampoo treatment is a replacement for aerating. You won't have to aerate ever again. Use a clear shampoo like baby shampoo. Don't use one with conditioners in it. Cheapo shampoo is fine. Generally you are correct to use the highest nitrogen number you can get easily with zeros for the other numbers. You might want to spend $25 for a soil test at Logan Labs to see if you need P or K in your fertilizer. If you do that, post your results here on this forum. Morpheuspa will read it for you and tell you how much of anything you need to apply, when to apply, and where to buy it. In addition to monthly feeding with high N, I would urge you to add at least one app per year of any organic fertilizer. The organic fertilizers feed the soil microbes so that they can help you take care of the grass. For example they keep the soil from getting hard. They also feed the grass, and there are other benefits. You can apply organics at the same time you use chemical ferts, or any other day of the year. Have you tried mowing down to 1/2-inch and letting it come back up to 3/4? Do you actually hit the ground when you mow lower than 1 inch or does it just scalp off all the green and leave brown stems? Brown stems are normal until you get it down to the 1/2-inch range. If you mow it 3x per week at 1/2-inch it will start to grow horizontally like you see on putting greens at the golf course. That's often the objective for serious bermuda growers.