I guess I'm surprised so many people have so much trouble killing bermuda in garden beds. Killing it out of an established lawn is a huge issue, but killing it in bare dirt is simple. Bermuda requires FULL sun to grow and thrive. If there is a tree or building to the south between you and the horizon, you have a pretty good shot at killing it out. All you need is shade. My neighbor killed her hybrid bermuda front lawn for two years by applying too much compost. The compost shaded out the bermuda. After two years of a really horrible looking lawn, they replaced it all with St Augustine. Just this year I killed a 500 square foot patch of bermuda by smothering it with sand and mulch. We had just finished remodeling last winter and the bermuda filled in where the contractors were working. We needed to relevel the area for drainage anyway, so we brought in sand. The sand ranged from 6 inches deep against the house out to zero inches deep at the edge of the stone driveway. The mulch was 2 inches deep next to the house and out about 10 feet, but then we put in a row of bricks at the edge. The bermuda was growing at the time and we received 50 inches of rain in the 100 days of summer. Although the bermuda was plush out in the (formerly) rock driveway, it never came up through the sand and mulch. This was not a Herculean attempt to kill the bermuda. It was straight forward gardening. We were prepared to pull bermuda shoots as long as necessary. We had less than a handful spring up where the mulch/sand combination was very thin under a huge rose bush. Those were in deep so I know they were volunteers from below. The bermuda creeping in at the edge is extremely easy to pull out of mulch and sand.

coy broadwell used to answer the phone in the eves from 7-8 or 8-9, i can't recall which. his # is 639-2952. they didn't used to have the varieties by name, but tagged by color. you can definitely get a lot more bang for the buck if you aren't picky about exactly which variety you get(just the color). we bought a 10'+ one with a 400# rootball(4' in diameter) a number of yrs ago that was 'watermelon red', and it was about $35. probably around 50 now, but you won't find full size trees for that anywhere else. the big ones are balled & burlapped. i think they carry smaller sizes in big pots, too. rob, the guy across the rd who's coy's nephew at old stage nursery will also have them, and they may be named varieties over there. his # is 772-6214 in eve, 631-5729 cell(but that could be old). good luck! tammy

Ressurecting this old thread. Peggy, I got a new idea on how to stop BG from creeping back into the cleared plots. Last year I mulched my strawberry plants with pine needles and they did an excellent job of keeping all weeds at bay (still looking good now too). So I'm going to surround an entire BG free plot with a thick line (1' wide/6" deep) of pine needles to see if that stops the runners from creeping back in. My neightbor has about 20 pine trees and I caught him burning the needles last week, he said please do take all I wanted so I am. I got a few pine trees too but not enough to carpet the area I need too. Grass clipping did well last summer at this too butI had to keep refreshing them since they breakdown so fast. The pine needles last over a year so far without much deterioration. Will update progress later...vgkg

Joellen, That is a nice one! But the price kind of took my breath away. It's half what I paid for my big compost tumbler out back. It certainly is nicer looking than my plastic container though. I've seen some at TJ Maxx and may have to look there again next time I'm over that way, which may be soon since TJ Maxx is my guilty pleasure :). Dawn, I spent a while trying to figure out what IPM stood for and never even got close. That's interesting. BG (before gardening) I'd have never understood why IPM was even necessary, lol. And speaking of pests, a couple of times lately I've seen a little cluster of white eggs about the size of a small pea on leaves. Does that sound familiar, and if so, are they eggs of good bugs or bad bugs? I don't know what to leave and what to remove, and don't want to automatically remove everything since some are beneficial. Suzie