How hard could your freeze have been? Was it worse than 19 degrees for several nights in a row? Year after year we get many nights of "hard freeze" and I've never seen a lawn that did not recover. I do see many people renovating their lawns this spring. After not watering for two full years, a lot of lawns were lost and became weed patches. Even the guy down the street who never waters ever renovated his lawn. Now he's diligently watering every day. It will be interesting to see what happens when he reverts to not watering. I suspect you have other problems. How often do you normally water? How low do you mow? How often do you fertilize? What is carpet grass? Around here St Augustine is called carpet grass. Bermuda will not be a problem unless you mow the St Aug low. If you let it get high, the bermuda will disappear. As long as St Aug gets water regularly, it will predominate. And how do you have 350 neighbors? Let's see, 350 neighbors at 1 acre each is 350 acres or 30 acres more than half a section. I suppose that is possible.

If you take care of your lawn, you don't need to worry about the neighbors. Water deeply and infrequently. This means no more than once a week by the time the summer's worst heat hits. Then mulch mow at your mower's highest setting. That should kill out the dandelions without doing anything else. The henbit and clover like stuff need to be pulled (or sprayed if you like to spray things). Those weeds are embarrassingly weak rooted, but they will choke out St Aug simply by growing over the top and shading it out. If your soil is all all moist, you need to search around and find the central root. Then loosen the runners and pull up the entire plant all at once. And they pull out easily. Barnyard grass may need to be pulled, nutsedge may go away with the water and mowing plan (it did for me), and crabgrass will definitely go away with the watering and mowing regimen.

Well, I spent all last night pulling it up anyway. That part of the yard is shaded, but it faces south. The tree is on the south end and has shade over it, but in early morning it gets a fair amount of morning sun and in late afternoon gets some afternoon sun. Not a lot, but some. The weed was growing on the eastern most edge of this lawn, where it gets the most sun. Either way, it's gone now. For now. The house faces south. This is the front lawn I'm describing, broken apart by a concrete path. To the west of the path is a huge tree in the middle of the area (don't ask me what kind...). Further west on the lot is a larg side lot filled with mature trees forming a full canopy (partly due to lack of maintenance) so TONS of shade. It also borders the house so doesn't get much morning sun. At the moment it's still weeds, but if the front takes, we'll start planting shadow turf there too. To the east of the path is a similar sized section that has only a smallish crepe myrtle and very little shade. It's a corner lot, so it gets full morning and afternoon sun and a fair amount of setting sun. That's where the Bermuda is - at least some of it. And also a TON of weeds. Not the crabgrass like stuff, more like clover leaf (but not that). The plan to till was to get rid of all that. I spent a good 7 hours last weekend pulling up weeds from one small stretch and my hands and back are killing me. How would you recommend we remove what is basically a carpet of weeds? There is some bermuda mixed in, but for most of the area, it's 90% weeds. I'm sore :( Here's a picture of the soon to be bermuda lawn that's full of weeds, looking north from the street: http://cheriseandfredo.blogspot.com/2007/09/and-after.html There's lots of overgrowth of bushes and whatnot that need trimming too. Do you have a recommendation for a tree trimmer that won't want to go in and tear out all our trees? We REALLY like the shade (have a/c but don't use it often). We like the park-like look, but it's bordering on overgrown forest.... Here's a fairly good picture of our side yard http://cheriseandfredo.blogspot.com/2006/02/autumn-in-texas.html We're in Lavaca. Not too close to the River, but we can walk to it! Oh, about the shadow turf, so it'll pop up elsewhere, not just expanding from the main plugs? I have a few sprouts that look like it, but they're kind of isolated and I'm not sure if that's really MY grass or some weed invading...It is expanding. Slowly, but I think I can see it. It's good to know it took a little while before really hitting its stride. I was worried I'd overwatered it. I am about to go buy some more plugs I think.

I was thinking the same thing. You can't get rid of bermudagrass without killing the St. Augustine. The good news is the St. Augustine stolons grow a half inch a day in the summer. So killing the yard and starting over wouldn't take long. You say the front yard is nearly perfect so in the perfect areas use some of your yard as a nursery and plug the back. The front will recover quickly and the back will soon be looking as good as the front. The key is using the top labeled amount which could range from 3 to 5 ounces per gallon. Then to use it as soon as you can then in about 2 weeks. You should have pretty much wiped out the back lawn. I would then cut the grass as low as possible then plug all you can. Keep it well moist and then wait. I would think by the end of next year you should have a solid back yard. Good luck.