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Bermuda Color - Before and After Mowing

15 years ago

I've been mowing my Bermuda lawn about once a week this summer. The lawn appears to be nice and green before mowing, but after mowing down to about a 1" height, it looks brown. I would have expected a green color throughout the entire height of the Bermuda, but not so.

Could this be indicative of cinch bugs ? Or is this normal ?

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Comments (6)

wrager
15 years ago
How often are you fertilizing and watering? With a decent amount of both, you would need to mow more than once per week to keep it green at 1". The rule is never cut more than 1/3 of the blade height. I know my bermuda will grow very rapidly during the hot summer months. I cut 2-3 times per week. A reel mower helps.
lawnchair
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks - I have a power reel mower and there's no way with my work schedule that I could mow 2-3 times a week. We have had a lot of rain in Central Florida this summer, most recently from a tropical storm. I have my Tru-Cut sent on the highest setting now, which appears to leave the grass at about 1" to 1 1/4" or so. Quite possibly, I am cutting off more than 1/3 of the blade. Fertilization is being handled by Tru Green, but I'm not sure about chinch bug control. I am seeing more and more patch and sparse areas.

Maybe I should have chosen Empire Zoysia when I resodded instead of Bermuda ?
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Well I bought the Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower and I have it set to about 2 notches below the lowest which I believe is about 1.75" or so. I bought it about three weeks ago and we've mowed every 3 days since we got it. I haven't noticed a huge difference in the way the lawn looks yet other than it is nicely manicured all the time. I trim every two weeks. The grass doesn't look anything like the above pictured lawns which are really nice looking. I mean it's green but it's got a fair amount of brown to it as well. I'm watering once a week for an hour in each zone but haven't done the tuna can test yet. I stagger that once a week watering into 4 different runs of 15 minutes each to try to avoid run-off. I am going to put more fertilizer down next weekend. I'm very much enjoying the Fiskars mower. It takes me about 30 minutes to mow and I calculated out the lawn square footage to right at about 2000 square feet. My wife is helping me out with some of the mowing and she will get up and mow at 6am during the week and it doesn't wake our neighbors. I was hoping to see the grass thicken up more now that I'm watering properly and mowing lower and more frequently. I'm not giving up hope yet. I'm staring out at my lawn a couple times per day and trying to see if it's looking better yet while continuing to read these forums. I'll definitely scalp it to 1" next year and try to maintain that height all season.
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I am in the piedmont also, what a lot of people refer to as zone 7 but I don't believe in zones so I don't use them myself but the temps you mention are similar to here. I would never get to raise the height much because come september when the temperature plummets so does the growth rate of this grass and even with fertilizer I haven't been able to get a significant increase in height after cutting it short for the whole season. Nothing major bad has happened to it. Lost a little bit last year but it wasn't a big deal bad might have actually been from a late freeze. In this area, this is when the optimal growing time for Bermuda comes to an end. It will slow down and lighten up and the zig zag marks come next month then it's all over. So I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted.
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The area next to the fence is doing great. It gets sunlight from about 9AM until about 5:30-6PM. Most of my backyard is full (6-8 hrs) sun except for parts on the side of the house and a little corner next to my back door. I think the fertilizer + organic is where I've been messing up lately. I stopped using fert and started using organic thinking I would burn the yard if I did both. I'll have to throw down some more fert here this weekend and I do/did use high N fert. I think it was 31-0-0 if I recall correctly. Although for some reason, or it least it seems, I have better results using scotts high N fert rather than vigoro high N fert. The backyard will be easy to level. The highs and lows aren't drastic at all. The front yard is another story and will take a bit to level out as there are some pretty big highs and lows. As for overseeding with Rye. The reason I wanted to do that this year is because I do have some really thin to completely bare spots...mostly in between houses on the sides where the bermuda gets very little sun. These aren't little spots either. Do you think it's worth slowing down the bermuda next spring a bit to ensure that there is at least something there in those spots instead of it just being dirt? The spots practically looks like this (not my yard just random google image) http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t2/johnrizvi/PICT0028.jpg
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texas_weed
15 years ago
Sounds about right to me with your infrequent mowing. You are removing all the leaf material leaving the stems. Mow two or three times a week.
davidandkasie
15 years ago
if you cannot mow more often, then you will have to live with it. my bermuda does the same thing and i cut mine only every 7-10 days, due to the fact that it takes too long to cut 4 acres and i ain't got time to cut it more often than that.
skoot_cat
15 years ago
I agree with the mowing frequency. If your not able to mow more frequently, tru-green should cut back on the fertilizer applications to avoid excessive top growth.
retro55
15 years ago
I had the same problem I am cutting twice aweek now and my yard stays green before and after cutting..it is a lil brown right after cutting but I water the next am and it is green after that..I was in the same boat as you work did not allow me to cut but every 10 days I just made time to cut it twice a week what a difference it made..

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