That is a hilarious request! We see it every year, too. The only grass that comes close is St Augustine and not Floratam. If that is all the damage your dog has done, then St Aug should work. It will need deep water once per week as will ANY grass you put in. The difference with St Aug is that it's the only southern grass which will tolerate any shade. And it will tolerate a lot more than you have. Chances are you already have St Aug back there. If that's the case you can nurse that until it spreads to cover the entire area. All it needs is weekly water and mowing at the highest setting. You can mow once per week or once every 2 or 3 weeks. If you want it to fill fast, then I would fertilize with an organic fertilizer once per month. I like alfalfa pellets at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet as a fertilizer. Get it in 50-pound bags at your local feed store - sold as rabbit chow. Apply by hand for that small area. Water deeply once per week. Deep means a full inch as measured by several cat food or tuna cans set out in the yard. For that area I would use an oscillator sprinkler. It might take many hours to fill the cans, so don't be surprised. Don't look now but your dog photobombed your picture.

BTW, do you know if centipede will generally choke out weeds and BAHAIA grass if it's maintained? Any secrets? Proper mowing and watering practices are going to be your best defense against weeds and Bahia grass. For example: Bahia prefers to be cut high 4+" where centipede should be mowed low at 1-2". Cutting low will help your lawn become dense and spread outward, and should choke out some of the Bahia over time. MOWING: Mow at 1 to 1-1/2 inches. Mulch mow with sharp blades, and mow often enough so only 1/3 of the plant height is removed. High and infrequent mowing tends to encourage thatch development, which can lead to chlorosis, drought stress and winter injury. However, during periods of drought the mowing height should be raised about 1/2 inch. WATERING: No more than once a week, but the best way is to Let Your Lawn Tell You When it Needs Water. As the soil begins to dry out, the lawn will show a lack of available moisture by wilted leaf blades. This condition is evidenced by a lengthwise folding or rolling of the blades, caused by a loss of turgor or water pressure within the plant. Also Footprints remain visible on a drought-stressed lawn long after having been made. Unless rain is forecast in the next 24 hours, lawns should be irrigated when 30 to 50 percent of the lawn shows signs of wilt/stress. Irrigate in the early morning hours between 2-6am Your objective when irrigating is to get the maximum amount of water to the root zone without over-irrigating. In clay soils,(which Im assuming you have) is somewhere between 1/2 to 3/4 inch of water. This will target the majority of the root system and encourage more rooting at lower depths. So, how do you know how to apply this amount of water? An easy method of measuring the amount of water applied by your irrigation system is to set out several straight-sided, same-size cans (tuna cans work best) at random in each irrigation zone. Monitor how much water is applied if you run your irrigation system for fifteen minutes by measuring the amounts in the cans. If, for example, you have 1/4 inch after that time, your system should run for thirty minutes to apply 1/2 inch of water.

Sedum and Lavender will die. How big is the area? First, kill the lawn with roundup by following this method. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/52156/how_to_kill_bermuda_grass.html If you have a sprinkler system, and can convert it to drip (there are kits, it's easy to do), which most lawn areas do, you can grow almost anything that can handle the heat and sun. Consider it an "oasis" area and grow things that need a bit more water. Myoporum is solid deep green, nice white flowers. Spreads wide and flat. Useful around tall spiky plants like Thompsons yucca. Those white morning glory bushes with grey leaves (I forget the name) are fluffy and cool looking. They spread Spreading Lantana - really gaudy flowers, butterflies love them, but tend to die back with frost. Some of the penstemons are perennial, and need a tad more water than "desert" plants. There is "Angelita daisy" - a spreader with deep green leaves and relatively tall flower stems above the leaves. Think of it as a really big container ... plant for some height, some spreaders around the edge, and check for flowering to cover all the seasons. Can you post pictures and dimensions? I LOVE to help people get rid of lawns.

Welcome, Mayland. If I were you I'd stop pulling out that ivy immediately and keep it until the drought is over. Which could be in a few months or a few years. Ivy is not PC these days by conventional wisdom, but with the normal very modest attention it requires it is beautiful, tough, very easy care, a historic and time-honored Southern plant, AND drought tolerant. And particularly valuable in your case right now, yours has well-established root systems which will help it survive drought and children. Kids will wear thin spots in it but it'd take a football team practicing on it daily to actually kill it. As far as this fantastic plant's one big negative, that it can be a pernicious weed, only the adult form form makes seed, and it's easy to remove any plant that progresses to that mature stage. And as far as growing up into the trees, it requires sustained neglect to get up there. A trim around the bases once a year will take care of anything that escapes the mower or weedwacker. As far as mowing goes, it's far more environmentally responsible than lawn as it only needs to be mowed each one or two years depending on how trim you prefer to keep it. It needs minimal feeding, no artificial fertilizers required, to keep it looking nice, and with mowing it will never develop enough depth to harbor the rodents some people associate with it. And be easy for your kids to run around on top of. Really the only other significant negative is that it's so out of favor these days, to the point that everyone is pulling it up six ways from Sunday without even considering the possibility that it might be valuable. But if this drought continues I predict that will change--big time.