Are you using old mower that blows out grass clipping from the side? Bermuda is not fun to deal with. Very invasive..

Your husband is right. It is a lot of work creating flat rock paths around beds. Not cheap either. However, I probably won't even dig out the area, put in fabric, all that work. I'd just fertilize bermuda grass first (to get them going; absorb round up better), spray round up 3-5 times to kill as much bermuda as possible (every week). Mow low and bag them every 2 weeks. After a month or so, put down flat rocks on dead grass and fill in space with decomposed granite and you're done. You may ocassionally have to spray on bermuda popping up...

That's how I got rid of bermuda lawn and replaced it with st augustine. St augustine grass is way more manageable...

What's free in your part of the world? Admittedly most of my paths are grass (fescue), but some are stone dug out of the garden. Others are pine needles raked out of the garden. I've seen wood chip paths locally, which would have come from another part of the property.

You get the idea.

I don't know if this would work in your area, but it sure works down here:

1.Cover the grass with layers of newspaper. This eliminates the need for spray. The heat, humidity and lack of light will kill the grass. The paper is biodegradable, of course.
2.Wet the paper.
3.Put the landscape cloth down.
4.Edge the walkways with stones, bricks,lumber, edging stones, plastic edging, whatever you think looks best for your garden.
5.Cover cloth with mulch or rocks.

We have stone walkways edged in bricks. NO GRASS! Extending the usable garden area is easy this way. Just pull up the ground cloth and reset the edging.

The good things about pathways instead of grass - no mowing, no using gasoline, no fixing the broken mower, no loud noise from the mower, no flying debris from the mower, more room in the garage because we don't even have to own a mower...

Happy Gardening,
Avalon

All my grass in the back and one and a half sides is gone. It was a race between me and the grubs!! I have paths of 'cracked granite' (jagged not rounded pieces about 1/2"). It packs together nicely and makes a very stable pathway. What we got is called 'contaminated granite' in that some limestone got into it so it was half price - $35 a yard. I edged it with the plastic edging that KMart sells that looks like beige limestone which works well to contain the gravel. I also have a wide path of small (about 1") pine bark chips which is also very nice. I sprayed with RU and used the 15-yr weed cloth (didn't want to do this again anytime soon.)

I have a circle of grass in the front yard, and I wish I didn't. It's a pain in the butt to edge and mow. It's a lot of work for such a small space. Glad the rest of it's gone.

Sherry

Bermuda grass is very persistent. I would use herbicide, and I like the idea of the paint roller to avoid spray drift. RoundUp may not be as innocent as some would claim, but it is still probably more benign than most other choices. After the bermuda looks dead, then cover it up with a layer of cardboard. You can get big pieces from appliance stores. I would use this rather than landscape cloth because eventually things do grow through landscape cloth and then you have a mess. (Landscape cloth has good uses, but this is not one of them.) Then top the cardboard with a thick layer of wood chips or stone, what ever you can get cheap or free.

You will probably still get a few pieces of bermuda grass coming back, but if you keep on it, eventually after several years you will lick the problem.

Rosefolly

Here's what I do though I have no idea if it is possible where you live. There is a rock quarry near us that produces what is called base rock for road work. This is crushed rock. They also have big rocks that I have used for retaining walls. Any way I have scraped all the grass off the pathways and put a thick layer of this crushed rock down. If it is thick enough no weeds come through. When it's tamped down it's nearly cement like. Any rocks that are round like pea gravel don't work as well. I'd prefer to have herringbone patterned bricks but that is an impossible dream.

In Washington I got wood chips very cheaply. I won't go into the Bermuda grass question here, but my paths were wood chips, and when they started to get weedy after a couple of years, I dug up the semi-decomposed chips and used them as mulch in the beds, and replaced them in the paths with fresh wood chips. This worked nicely, though the method was, ah, dynamic.

Melissa

I feel your pain, Sammy. Bermuda is a really something else.
Truthfully, the path thing is likely to compound your maintenance. All sorts of weed seeds love to congregate in tiny cracks around rocks and left-over Bermuda will have a field day. Grass is the lowest maintenace path there is if you just contain it.
Bermuda clippings likely will not start new plants in your beds. Thick mulch is the key. I get pickup loads from our community pile. The city will trim trees and the chip the prunings, leaving them in a gigantic pile for anyone to get. Do you have any such source in your town? You might have to apply a pre-emergent to deter weeds seeds. The thick mulch sure lessens all maintenance chores.

Sammy, I saw a picture in a mag of a path with old bricks but they weren't small. It was attractive. Every stone I like is $$$. I may not edge and do a trench but still need a path badly. If I have any ideas, I will let you know.

Carla

hi, Sammy,

my motto is the simpler and cheaper the better. I try the simplest way first, and if it doesn't work, I can always spend money later.

I would try one of two things first, I would spray with the roundup on the edges and just try to keep it trenched around the edges. I have grass paths now , but I have fescue. This is a completely different animal than bermuda. I just use a small gas trencher once or twice a season to keep the edges defined and use round up when I need to. i like the paint roller idea.
Or I would do what Rosefolly suggests, spray it with roundup, and then cover with cardboard and then put mulch or wood chips or gravel or whatever you can get free or cheap.

Alternatively, I'd think about putting in some concrete edging along your beds that would lie flush with the lawn and that could just be mowed over and then edge occasionally . I'd maybe lay some brick on top of that, but then it would prob have to be edged regularly. ugh.

I hate bermuda grass, and am sorry you're having to deal with it. I hope my ideas are some help and good luck, Gean

.

The cheapest I could come up with is a path made up of 16" square pavers from the Home Improvement store. Mulch between them to keep away the weeds.

I have some paths that are just a thick thick mulch. When the mulch gets thin I just add more.

One option if you have energy but not money is to try to get pieces of broken concrete free from people who are replacing driveways or walkways (advertise for it on Craigslist?) and use the pieces as you would pieces of stone. You are recycling as well, keeping the concrete out of the landfill. People are happy to give it to you because they can save the dumping fees.

The crushed stone as mentioned above is a good option because it tamps down firmly and makes firm pathways. It does cost some money though--not as much as other options, but still some. You want "crushed stone", not pea gravel. Pea gravel shifts around and is hard to walk on.

I would not use landscape fabric. It doesn't prevent weeds at all--they either just grow through the fabric, grow around it, or grow on top of it.

One way to save money on mulch (if you have some extra room around the yard) is to collect everyone's bagged up leaves in the fall and let the bags sit over winter or even longer. You end up with highly nutritious "leaf mold" which you can spread around to stretch your purchased mulch out. And anything you can compost also stretches out the purchased mulch.

I got rid of the grass between two large beds by resorting to roundup. I then put thick cardboard down and used the same mini pine bark chips that I have in the beds. I don't have much of a weed problem, at least not yet. I thought for a little pizazz I might add a few stepping stones in there, although I feel it looks nice without them. It's cheap, and can be easily changed for something else later, such as when nice pavers can be afforded, or flagstone.

Just a note. I would never use landscape cloth again. Even the good stuff wears out after a while, and I found the weeds that are the most noxious just burrow up through it anyway, and they are harder to pull out because of the cloth. It was extremely labor intensive ripping all that stuff out, and I don't care to do that again in this lifetime.

Sandy

I think converting to a more manageable grass is a good alternative as discussed above. Fescue is great since it doesn't creep and just spreads its area slowly. Having tried about every type of path around, I think poured concrete is the best for low maintenance, but may be out of your price range. Be sure to price it out vs other choices like pavers if you are thinking of that route. Pavers are most handsome, but can have problems like weeds/moss. And if they are not done correctly, issues like settling/uneven surfaces arise.

Thank you so much for the good suggestions.

Lou, yes, get rid of the bermuda first, then put down what I want. And you are correct - Round Up won't work until the bermuda greens up.

Mad - Gallica, great ideas, but we have used whatever is free. I still can look around to see if I can find something.

Avalon, we are on the same page, but I have trouble with the mulch. The wagons and people seem to kick it around too much, and the replacement cost is high. I like your ideas for getting rid of the grass.

Sherry, do you have a picture? The granite sounds interesting, but I cannot think of what it would look like.

Rosefolly, I like the cardboard idea, but the mulch or rocks are super expensive for such a large area. Thanks.

Mendocino, do you have a picture? I am sure that there are rock quarries around here, but I have never looked.

Melissa, thanks. Bermuda is extremely invasive, and it works underground. It crawls under landscape fabric until it finds an outlet, and sometimes it even penetrates it.

Greybird, the city mulch was my choice about 10 years ago. Did you know that the city does not care if there are ants and termites in it? As far as I know there are no regulations, except what is there is what the city has chopped. We have a truck load dumped on our driveway one year, and after a couple of years, were fighting a huge ant invasion. It was the worst bug infestation I have ever seen. In our part of the country, even though it gets cold, it isn't cold enough to get rid of the critters. I really appreciate your suggestion, but I have been there and done that.

I certainly agree about the bermuda. I am not sure what has made it so bad in the beds, but I am having a hard time with it.

Carla, it is great to hear from you again. Bricks are pretty, but I think we might need too many of them.

Gean, it is good to hear from you. I had fescue in Tennessee, but here it is only used in the shade. Once it is summer, it goes dormant in the sun. I do need to look into using concrete or something permanent.

Zach, the 16" pavers are a good idea. That is like what we have used in the steps in the back.

Hoovb, you have touched on my biggest problem. I should collect those bags, and save them. Even if I were to save them in my own yard, way in the back, I would have so much mulch to begin with. It is the same with any type of compost.. As soon as I see an increase of bugs or varmits, I quit. I only get as far as coffee grounds and bananas.

Thanks, Sandy. I may resort to just using the Round Up, and leaving the ground bare or putting in cardboard.

Jbcarr, fescue won't grow here in the sun. Once it gets around 100 degrees, it goes dormant. All the newspapers and master gardeners say to not try it. We are stuck with bermuda.

I appreciate the time you have taken to respond. I have some homework to do to see exactly what I need to put down. Thank you so much for your suggestions -- and keep them coming if you can think of others.

Sammy

Sammy, I know you'll figure something out. Bermuda is a force to be reckoned with. And RoundUp just won't get rid of it. Plus it can lie dormant for a while quite nicely sans sun.

We have such hard conditions, Bermuda is a low maintenance grass and is great when it is kept in its place.

I wish I could switch it out with St. Augustine. But I just don't care to water that much.

Sammy this isn't a very good picture but it does show that the rock looks pretty good in the garden. Like I said if it is put down very thick and tamped there are no weeds. I am very lucky because the quarry is 5 miles away and we have a truck. We pay $14 dollars a ton. Carrying it around in the wheel barrow is heavey work, but it will never have to be mowed.
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Oh, how very beautiful. I read it from my email and the picture was not there, but this is gorgeous. Thank you so much.
Sammy

Thanks Sammy.

Sammy, my small backyard with St Augustine grass was a pain to mow; the grubs were an even bigger pain; and I needed to add more rose beds.
But like everything else it was unintensional. In digging out my front garden I had to dump the crummy sand/dirt somewhere so it went in the back which was fortunately low. Then I needed to make the hardpacked dirt look nice. So this was the fix.
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Then I did one side.
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Then the last grub-eaten grass HAD to go. The free gift was an unexpected rose bed under the windows and wider beds on both sides. Less wasted space. This was taken the day I did the path before the beds were dug.
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I really like it. It gives a flow to the garden that wouldn't be there without the gravel.
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Sherry

Sherry, that is outstanding, but how did you do it? Did you have the gravel delivered, and spread it yourself? Is it blue? The white curved edging give it definition, and the inserted stones make it look great. I like that.

Sammy

They delivered 4 yards in a big dump truck. We shoveled it into a wheelbarrow and spread it from there about 2 - 3 inches deep with one of those short-tined rakes. Watering it in and walking over it compresses the rocks together and over time it compacts tightly and is great to walk on WITH shoes. The inserted stones are broken pieces of cement pavers. I broke some that I had then went to KMart where they give away their broken pieces. The color is a medium metal gray that darkens when wet. Weeds that sprout in the granite dust are easily pulled out. There is weed cloth underneath - the 15-yr kind from Lowes. It has a very tight weave. Nothing is going to come through that stuff.

So glad you like it, Sammy. We're very pleased with how it turned out. We moved our Black & Decker shed last weekend so I have to get more stone to extend the path and cover a potting area. Hopefully, it will only take a yard. BTW, the dogs don't mind walking on it, but human bare feet hate it. The stones are sharp and stick in your feet.

Sherry

About cement next to rose gardens in the sun. I've seen this used in this part of the world and the folks are devoted to insecticides to keep their spider mite populations under control. The heat radiating from the cement makes for microenviroments that ought to be useful for some plants, if not roses.

I have a husband who believes in weed cloth and has used it in his garden railroad. He hasn't cleaned the gravel and companion plants on it yet this year.

At the arboretum, there are five rose beds is a goup with paths throughout. After eliminating the grass, we laid landscape cloth and applied 6 to 8" of woodchip. Local tree services will donate the chip but when it comes--WHOA it's a lot of chip. At home, the rose garden has patio on side, but in the middle is an area with landscape cloth which was covered with bark mulch. RoundUp makes a sprayer wtih a great nozzle and one setting is perfect for spraying a little strip around the edge to kock back the invading bermuda. Needs done every 7-10 days tho, sigh.

Sherry, wow I love that setup!!! Your place is immaculate, looks so inviting back there on the patio. Can you take some pics at night, I bet it is lovely by the glow of your street lamp...