Yep. That's how it is over here too... I'd say 95% of all the houses in my subdivision had all their plant beds taken over by bermuda.... The neighborhood park gets mowed twice a month. It looks bad when it gets mowed. I suppose it'd look better with zoysia grass instead if they were mowed that often but I digress... Not my problem. I planted 9 trees at the park so it will be eventually a problem for bermuda in 25 years... Only idiots would cut trees down. The playground gets very hot during the summer.

Yep, that stuff can travel!

The folks in my neighborhood don't maintain their bermuda well either. Most fertilize once a year, if at all, and mow once a week, or every other week. The funny part is, they must think their lawn looks bad due to lack of water, because they all water daily, and some water twice a day. Even with the drought and our "voluntary" restrictions, they keep watering. Honestly, I don't think most of them even know how to set their irrigation system timers, they just left them at what the landscaper set them on. Anyway, needless to say, most of them have bad weed problems, in addition to thin, week, yellow grass. It's really a shame, because they spent lots of money on sod to put these lawns in and then just let them go. I really think most of these lawns would look better if they had just put in Centiweed. There are a handful of houses that have very nice looking bermuda yards, including mine, but it is the exception rather than the rule.

Our common areas are a little better maintained, probably because it is a golf course community, and they know a little something about bermuda care.

I get such a kick out of the situation here because the builder put in all this sod AND a high end (form what I'm told) sprinkler system to water virtually the entire length of frontage. It has never been used. I heard that we are stuck in a contract with a lawn mowing service (I can't call it a "lawn care" service) that charges only $200 a month to mow all of that plus a park in the middle of the neighborhood that looks even worse. The contract does not state anything other than mowing so the company is fulfilling their end.
I've suggested to the director once when they were bush hogging a bunch of trees and saplings for no apparent reason that instead of wasting money doing that, they tear out the sod instead and let more of the land return to woods since it will look much better and be less to maintain.

Centiweed may have a better quality appearance with this level of maintenance but I have yet to see any that looks "good".

With fewer than 100 homes in here and even less that actually pay their dues, maintaining all that bermuda properly would exhaust the dues that are collected. On the flip side the grass is not mowed very many times in a season due to the relatively short time it is actively growing.

The future of bermuda will be as you say if left unchecked or neglected. But if you are willing to work with it I see no problem. Almost 20 yrs in my front and back and not a grass blade in the flower beds. On the other hand next door his bermuda is all over his planter beds.

Part of me wishes that I liked it and could grow it. My lot is shaded, so I use TTTF. I prefer how TTTF looks over bermuda. But...I have to overseed every fall and talk nicely to my fescue and really keep up with it for it to do well. Bermuda can be neglected, abused, heck - you can try to kill it...but it just keeps doing its thing.

I'm the kind of idiot that would take out a tree. When 50-pound limbs break and fall 20 feet onto your car, you tend to get crosswise with the tree.

All I want to know is how the heck did you code an HTML table in a GardenWeb input form and get it to stick????

theyardbird: When I find something that seems to work, I'll start shouting about it. I planted Shadow Turf, a variety of zoysia, last May. In my relatively sunny area if filled in already. Last week I had the opportunity to visit the home of Shadow Turf in Abernathy, TX. The owner took me to see an installation under an English walnut tree. The turf is nearing the end of its second full growing season, and it looks pretty darned good. It is the greenest, most dense turf I have ever seen, and it's growing in a lot of shade. Write to me and I'll send you pictures. On the negative side, it is as aggressive as bermuda, so you need to contain it with solid borders.

Dchall,

How much shade are we talking about? I'd like to see pictures of Shadow Turf in the shade. Who knows, many years down the road, I'd plant shadow turf at the park when the trees get large enough to cast shade where bermuda can't thrive anymore. I'm ruling st augustine grass out mainly because nobody knows how to cut them the right way and water the right way either. Not worth the trouble.

theyardbird wrote: "Bermuda can be neglected, abused, heck - you can try to kill it...but it just keeps doing its thing."

As you can see from the photos, you can NOT neglect bermuda. It is in fact a lot of work to get it to look good. It may stay alive through things that would kill tall fescue but bermuda doesn't just automatically look good.

Dchall, I just used a table, simple as that. Using tables in G-web often leave you with an annoying space like the one shown.

And you cannot over-love bermuda. A neighbor of mine applied an inch of compost to his formerly beautiful bermuda lawn and nearly completely smothered it. It would have come back but after a full year of looking awful, he sold the house. The new owner replaced it with St Augustine.

Last May I put 2 inches of sand and 2 more of mulch on top of the bermuda volunteering at the edge of my driveway and it has not come back.

qq: maybe I saw the huge gap and thought my table wasn't there. Hmmm. I might be reformatting some stuff.

Bermuda that has popped up from seed is one thing, existing sod is another. I'm surprised that little composed damaged it. I put out a couple inches of top soil late in the season on grass that had undergone 21 applications of non-selective herbicide and the topsoil put that stuff into overdrive and it came right through. It brought the grass back to life.

Bermuda popped up right in the middle of st augustine lawn and I'm scratching my head on how that happened. It was just bare ground when I bought the house. Oh well.

Why are you scratching your head? Common bermuda is like any weed that spreads by seed that blows in from the wind, birds, water etc.

Bermuda is the best!! Sucks when it gets in the flower bed though.

Bermuda is WHAT??? What are you smoking, kid?

Bermuda is men's worst enemy...

Go take a nap!

Never have understood the bermuda hate. My last house of 20 years had a mixture of bermuda and fescue. 40,000 sq. foot lawn with probably 32000 fescue and 8000 bermuda. I planted the bermuda early on because there were spots of hardpan or huge rocks only a few inches under the surface and the fescue would not do well. They did well together and in 20 years the bermuda didn't creep over 2 feet from it's original spot. I mowed the entire lawn at about 2.5 inches and the bermuda stayed just as green as the fescue and just slighly fluffier.I'm patching the rough spots at my new house with bermuda and having the same results. 3 ft diameter circles crept maybe 2 inches this year and the lows have dropped to the 40's lately and it's still Kelly green. I overseeded 4 weeks ago with a Classen and 50 lbs of Lesco fescue on appx. 8000 sq. feet and it looks like a golf course. From the road you can't tell what's fescue and what's bermuda. My experience has been it doesn't spread aggressively into the good stands of fescue and if you like to hit wiffle golf balls during the summer like I do it's great to have patches of bermuda to fill back in.

Just my humble experience

You're not maintaining it properly, growing it on hardpan and are on the fringe of it's range. If you set your expectations low enough, anything will look acceptable.

I actually have been very happy with my bermuda. I am in my second season with my Triangle blend lawn. This year it really thickened up and laughed at the week long 100 degree heat we had. I water once/week when needed, fertilize monthly, cut 2x/week at about 1" and my yard looks great. It is so darn hot down here in the summer that it is very difficult to grow cool season grass and would definitely have to overseed each year to keep it going. My grass stayed green until around Christmas last year (mild Fall) and started greening back up in March and really got going in April. So, I really can't complain. I keep my beds edged with a string trimmer about every week or two and hit any stray runners with roundup about once a month.

I know I am new to Bermuda, and I see a lot of poorly maintained Bermuda around me, but I am pleased with mine so far.

Well, where I am, fescue can't survive at all. Bermuda loves hot weather and FULL SUN and spreads out maybe 5-8 feet a year, both underground and above ground when given fertilizer and water. They don't do great when they do not get enough sun. That is what I have observed at my mom's house in Houston, Texas (zone 9) where there a lot of trees around.

I agree Lou. Just like buffalo grass - if there are any fences, buildings, or trees between you and the horizon to the south, you might need something else besides bermuda.

See now if this was fescue that was shade intolerant people would say "ooh oooh no that doesn't grow here."

It's not Bermuda's fault! Bermuda is just doing what it does when not maintained. Yes, it looks like hell if neglected but properly maintained Bermuda is gorgeous. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't opt to grow Bermuda in a large area b/c it does require a significant amount of work, but for smaller areas-no question about it.

quirkyquercus,
A. Because the grass was greener on the other side.

It seems to take a lot more work to keep bermudagrass "gorgeous" than it does to make st augustine "gorgeous". I can go a long time before mowing st augustine and it still looks good but I can't with bermuda. Both need same amount of watering to look good. Bermuda needs significantly more nitrogen to stay green. Majority of homeowners will benefit from zoysia grass rather than bermuda aka devil's grass..

Here's something to think about.
We have dry summers. There's nothing new about that. Even though the drought we are in is really unbelievable, our summers are often droughty.

This mean you have to water some cool season grasses to keep them alive. This also means you have to water bermuda because it needs water to stay green (and alive too).

During the summer you can expect very high quality turf from bermuda, unmatched by an cool season grass, anywhere on the planet. However to bring out that potential, it needs water, close mowing, monthly ferts etc.

All of the maintenance would make sense unless the following are true:
* We have dry summers
* We have a cool season, in most years it is longer than the warm season.
* We can grow alternatives.

When the growing season is short (unlike the desert SW) and it is droughty, it is a struggle to bring out bermuda's high quality potential. Why bother with that struggle? Instead of the status quo, why not instead put away the lawn mower for summer instead. It easier to grow grass in the cool season when moisture from cold fronts is more regular.

If the summers were wet, that would change things because then if you wanted to grow bermuda, it would be easier to acheive the 8-9 quality ratings. Whereas TTTF may avg a high 5 or 6 rating year round, at least in an area with dry summers and mild winters, the grass will have more growing time. The alternative would be either dormant or coming into or coming out of dormancy.

As a result, the whole city has not had good color lawns this summer. Since the lawns will be dormant til almost june, we've just lost an entire year. There has been lost opportunities for a beautiful green lawn that will cover up the mud in the cool season.

I just don't get it. I don't see why others think brown grass for virtually the entire year (most years) is acceptable. And not just that but they eagerly throw money at chem spraying companies to make the grass green when it just isn't going to be more than a 4.5-5.0.
I'd love for someone to explain it to me. I will admit, seeding lawns is a pain and stressful and I'd rather not have to do that every year. Not everyone does (those in shady yards etc) but I am literally the only one in my neighborhood that has had grass this year with a quality rating more than 5.
A 5 isn't something to brag about, it's bare minimum acceptable quality. When I drive around town, I want to see pretty green grass. Not dead grass and stems that just makes the place look unpretty.