I had Bermuda in my tall fescue lawn. I bought the smallest quantity of this stuff I could find, (which still cost 50 bucks) and used it, carefully following the directions exactly (since I have a degree in integrated pest management, I am pretty knowledgeable about using pesticides.) The fescue died and the Bermuda sneered. I wound up digging up the whole area of the lawn with Bermuda in it, carefully screening out every bit of rhizome, and replanted with fescue sod. In forty years of struggling with Bermuda, this is the ONLY method I've ever found that worked, sifting though every shovelful to pick out every bit of stem. Sorry, I know you didn't want to hear this... If you live by Sacramento, you can come by and get the rest of the bottle from me if you want to try anyway.

Sometimes Ornamec works for me, sometimes not.

But, curiously, I get 100% knockdown on all grasses when I use Ortho's Grass-B-Gone, which has the same active ingredients. It's a ready-to-spray product for about $8 a bottle. That makes it a LOT more expensive than Ornamec if you need to cover a lot of ground but MUCH cheaper if you're only spraying a small bed.

Joe

I agree with Davissue. Herbicides may work great on other grasses, but in my experience, Bermuda grass never dies unless you dig it out. And if you dig it out, make sure not to water during the next several days, or else even the tiniest fragment of root left on top of the soil will start growing all over again.

I have used Roundup for many years with pretty good success, even Bermuda. Bermuda may take several applications. As someone said, fragments of rhizome in the ground as well as seed my produce new plants. I have an occastional plant popping up now and then in an area I sprayed 10 years ago. Nevertheless, Roundup will work without having to dig around the roots of your garlic.

Adjust your sprayer to coarse droplets to avoid fine mist that might be carried in the air. Don't spray when you can feel air moving. Use a shield, a large piece of cardboard to isolate the garlic from the Bermuda when you spray.

You should be successful if you are prepared for more than one spray application. Oh, if you see that the spray if not sticking to the leaves of the Bermuda, you must add a sticker/spreader to your spray solution ( or a little detergent) to break the surface tension on the leaves' surfaces.

RB

The stuff is used to kill grasses
Grasses are monocots.
Society garlic is a monocot.

Thanks for all of the responses. I had somebody over yesterday and their suggestion was along the lines of using roundup judiciously and carefully when the wind isn't blowing. Perhaps part of the recent issue I've had is I let the grass take off and didn't maintain the bed for a while (the rest of life got in the way).

As for the irrigation, I'm going to convert the entire zone that handles that bed (and some other places) from MP Rotator sprinklers to 1/4" dripline. My hope is between whatever weed abatement I do (whether pulling or roundup or some other approach), the spot-watering of the plants should help to prevent the kind of widespread growth I've been seeing.

BTW, a very helpful tool in the battle was a $10 tool I puchased at Lowes. The handle is about the size of a hammer, however the head looks like a pick axe on one end and has three claws on the other. It works great for attacking the stuff on a spot basis - MUCH easier than the screw driver I was using.

I have one of those similar tools only is a long handle like a regular shovel etc and yeah...it can hurt something.
The claws do bend when hitting or digging up rocks and boulders ;)