I don't think Round-up will hurt your tree. I can't say that it won't for sure, but I have never seen research saying it does.

I use Round-up to keep a 6 foot diameter vegetation-free around about 150 seedlings. On another 100 seedlings that are not in rows, I do not use Round-up. The ones where I use Round-up grow about twice as fast. I also use it around my garden beds and all berries. No damage that I can tell.

I agree with Scott. As long as you do not spray the Round-up directly on small saplings, it won't kill a tree.

If it were me (and I have a slope just like yours), I'd spray all the grass on the slope with Round-up at one time. Then, I'd come back with large cardboard boxes (the kinds appliances or chairs or something else large come in), flatten them, lay them down on the slope to prevent erosion, and cover them with hay or straw, chopped leaves (wet them down to prevent them from blowing away), bark mulch, grass clippings, etc. (Use anything and everything you can find.) I'd try to put a layer 3" to 6" thick on top of the cardboard. If you can't get cardboard, you could use newspaper laid 12 to 14 pages thick and with lots of overlap, but it won't keep the bermuda out for as long.

The combination of cardboard or newspaper plus a heavy layer of mulch will help smother the grass. Don't get me wrong--it will NOT keep the bermuda from doing everything in its power to regrow and take back the area, but it will help give you the upper hand.

Whenever you are ready, scrape back the mulch, cut a hole in the cardboard or newspaper, and plant your ground cover. Mulch around the ground cover, and watch carefully because the first place the bermuda will try to regrow will be right there where you planted each ground cover plant.

When you see bermuda grass regrowth, and you will, if you can't dig it out, use a paintbrush (I like the cheap foam ones) to paint Round-up directly onto the grass itself. That'll keep the Round-Up from drifting onto your ground covers the way it would if you sprayed it. If you check the ground cover bed weekly and paint on Round-up, you should be able to conquer the grass pretty easily. However, if you ever let the bermuda regrow for a couple of weeks, you're in trouble! Vigilance really pays off.

You will have to keep adding mulch to your slope, and on a slope, often hay or straw, grass clippings, or VERY finely shredded bark mulch are the best because they do not wash downhill as much as larger, chunkier bark mulch would. Over time, the cardboard and/or newspaper will decompose and, as it decomposes, it attracts earthworms and they help carry the organic material down into the soil, thereby enriching it.

If your slope is impossibly steep and even hay, straw, grass clippings, chopped leaves or pine bark fines still wash downhill, you can lay down the black netting sold as bird netting (to keep birds out of fruit trees and berry brambles) on top of the mulch and use landscape staples to peg it to the ground. The black netting will not be highly visable from a distance and it will help hold the mulch in place.

Good luck,

Dawn

Dawn and Scott! Thank you! My other option is to just "mow" the grass on the slope with a weed whacker. It is, indeed, quite steep, but there isn't too much of an expanse - probably 150 ft. wide and then the slope part goes up about 6 or 7 ft before it levels off. Should I just leave well enough alone - and avoid using the mower, lest I fall off the side of the earth and chop off my foot?

I absolutely agree that round-up would be the way to go, but...

Good healthy bermuda is a great cover for that slope. I thought about weedeating 150' by 7' every two weeks during the grow season and I got sweaty just thinking about it. I think its a toss up btw. the work to keep the grass at a reasonable height and the work it might take to establish something to replace the bermuda.

Gotta goat?

Glyphosate (generic for Round up) Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum, non-selective systemic herbicide. What does that mean? "Broad-spectrum, non-selective" means it kills anything and everything. However, the herbicide part tells us that it works primarily on softer, "herb-like" plants, as opposed to woody plants. It is absorbed through foliage, or in this case grass blades. It is not absorbed through tree bark. It is locked up in soil and is not absorbed through the roots. If you spray it on tree saplings, it may slow them down, but it takes a lot of repeated applications to kill baby trees. Net effect: it's okay to spray near your adult trees.

The "systemic" part is important, too. Glyphosate is absorbed through the foliage and works its way down. It is more effective on a plant that has been well watered. This may seem counter intuitive, if you think that a thirsty plant will drink up more of the stuff. However a well watered plant is better able to transport glyphosate through the entire system, before the system starts shutting down.

Another good thing to know. Glyphosate is ineffective at temperatures below 60 degrees F, and works much better at 70 and over. Bermuda grass is a cross between a Timex and the Terminator. It takes a licking and keeps coming back. So I would reiterate Dawn's statement that vigilence pays off. It will probably take 2 or more treatments, and an occasional touch up to kill dormant seeds that will eventually sprout.

When I last purchased glyphosate, the best deal in town was from a regional Farm and Home store, often mentioned here on the forum. I don't want to advertise, so if you are curious you must email me privately. At that time a 2 and 1/2 gallon container of glyphosate concentrate was $37. This is WAY cheaper than buying premixed glyphosate of any brand name. We mix up only how much we need. Depending on what we are spraying it takes only 5 1/3 Tablespoons per 1 gallon or 2 gallons, so it is lasting a very long time for us.

Hope this helps,
Seedmama, who DESPISES Bermuda grass.

Bagsmom,

I think the way I'd handle the slope depends on whether I intended to live at the current home forever, or only for a couple of years.

Our home, for example, is our "forever" home, including our eventual retirement home. With that in mind, I wanted a long-term solution for our slope, so we planted 6 or 8 trees that will eventually shade out the grass on the slope. (In part of the slope, that's already happening.) Then, as the trees get large enough to shade out the bermuda, I'll put in groundcovers that thrive in shade.

If the house is short-term, like maybe 2 or 3 years, I'd probably mow or weed-eat it, figuring that I could handle that for a couple of years, knowing it wouldn't be forever.

If the house is longer term, maybe 5-7 years, but not forever, I'd try mowing the first year. After that, I'd decide if I wanted to spend part of each week mowing or weedeating that slope for the next few years or if I'd rather get rid of the bermuda and not have to maintain that slope.

I think that with a slope like that you have to pick your battles and figure out what's the best use of your time and money. If the slope were south-facing, I'd be tempted to take out the bermuda this winter and plant with a really good wildflower seed mix. Then, I'd treat the plot with an over-the-top herbicide like Ornamec to keep the grass regrowth to a minimum. I'd overseed for the next two or three years with a good wildflower seed mix, like Wildseed Farms Firecracker 234 mix or Oklahoma-Texas mix and continue to attack the bermuda grass with Ornamec or something similar. After several years, you'd have a gorgeous wildflower-covered hillside. You also could mix in relatively low-growing prairie grasses like blue gama grass or sideoats grama. This approach would work best if you are in a rural area where you won't have close neighbors objecting to your "weedpatch", a homeowner's association telling you that you can't have a patch of unmown wildflowers and native grasses or a city mowing ordinance that would thwart your efforts to grow wildflowers.

If the slope is westward-facing and if you live in an area with relatively little rainfall, removing the bermuda and planting a buffalo grasss would be a great solution. However, except for watering to get the buffalo grass established, you could never water this slope. Why? Because, in a very dry site with no irrigation, buffalo grass will outsurvive bermuda. However, if you get ample rainfall and irrigate the area, bermuda will invade and choke out the buffalo grass.

If it were a northward or eastward-facing slope, I'd plant shade trees and shrubs and mulch heavily beneath them (with cardboard or newspaper beneath the mulch) and wait for them to shade out the bermuda. The problem with that approach is that you'll have to mow for at least 10-15 years until the plants are close enough together to really shade out the bermuda.

Also, I don't know what we'd do to control bermuda grass without glyphosate sprays, but because of research showing they may be linked to deformities in some amphibians and acquatic life, I won't spray them near a pond or creek.

Dawn