A bit late in the season, but have faith, you can't kill that stuff. Mine was laid May 31 & looks stellar at 5 months old. Rooting is roughly 5 feet a year on pure sand, so don't worry about the top, make sure the roots are growing. Have you rolled it? Have you fertilized it? With that much sun, it'll come through. This is mine shortly after scalping, search for my celebration threads for more pics

I should have asked...Is this certified celebration from a legit sod seller?

It was from King Ranch Turf. I guess they are certified? they have a very nice sample area in Katy TX where you can see all their grass. The celebration they had on display was perfect.

Yes I can see the fine white hairs, some areas have more than others. Just wondering, since the nights are now 50-60 deg F- maybe the Bermuda is being tricked into dormancy? the grass growth is almost non existant. I was hoping to try my new reel mower this weekend - but the grass hasn't grown at all.

Also - I did not roll it. I have walked on it a lot to press it in. The sod installers overlapped about 100 X edges so I had a double layer of sod for an inch around a lot of edges. Really annoying - I had to dig out the overlapped edges. Took hours. That didn't help. I am not going to fertilize until the sod is fully rooted in. Maybe in 2 weeks? they say fertilizing too soon after sodding is bad.

I'm saying it's water logged. 1/2 inch a day is waaaaay too much water especially for unrooted grass. All you have to do is keep the sod and the very surface of the underlying soil moist. Bermuda sod will not die if you forget to water it for a few months, so the issue cannot be not enough water. Low temps is not the issue either. It needs to freeze pretty hard to go dormant. Although a combination of the various stresses (cutting roots, water logging, and sort of lowish temps) might cause premature dormancy.

You can fertilize with organic fertilizer any time you want to. Bermuda is a nitrogen hog, so I don't know who "they" are, but I don't think you'll have a problem if you fertilize.

You got it from the right place, king ranch is where I got mine too.

Be careful with the water, especially if it wasn't rolled--You may have areas that go blue, which means too dry. When you see those, hit them with a 1 gallon bucket of water plus a drop of baby shampoo or jet-dry to make it soak in. If a spot starts to go brown or black, then it has way too much water.

The sod from king ranch is grown on a compressed peat/clay mix. This is good for transportation & planting, but once it's laid that causes a very tough moisture barrier. You also have a layer of sand under it, which makes your soil stratified. Moist on top & dry below. Surfactant like baby shampoo & jet dry will help break down & soften the top layer, while helping the sand below hold extra water--Use them often the next few weeks.

Growth is slow right now, but don't sweat it, your reel will get plenty of exercise next spring. Keep this grass about 1" for now, probably the highest setting on your reel if it's gas powered. Is it a McLane or trucut or Cali trimmer, or is it a push? Whatever you do, no scalping until late February 2017!

Now for fertilizer. It needs nitrogen but it also needs to root, so here's my secret sauce: Grab some fish fertilizer from the store, I get Microlife from ace hardware because it's local & has kelp extract mixed in, but Alaska brand is available by the jug at your local Lowe's & it's almost as good. Mix 2 ounces per gallon of stinky fish juice with a few drops of surfactant in a sprayer & douse the whole area. This will provide nitrogen, humic acids, iron, plant hormones, and wetting agents all at once as well as softening up the sod base. Spray this every 2 or 3 days until the grass looks great. Believe me it won't take long. This will never burn your grass, even in the worst conditions. You can use a synthetic starter fertilizer after the first 3 sprays of fish juice. Dropping salt based fertilizer right now probably won't hurt it, but it can't really use it properly yet because of the hard layer the sod came on--It'll just sit on top.

PLEASE KEEP US UPDATED!

Edit: Please make sure your sprayer is clean, you'll be really mad at yourself if it still has roundup in it. In fact, I keep one for fertilizer & a separate one for herbicides because I hate to clean.

Thanks for the advice about the fish fertilizer and shampoo, I have to look into that. Here is another angle with dates. Not much change. Since it is getting cooler now shall I go with a 1-0-2 to 1-0-4 fertilizer in a week or so?

Also - I plan on using a push reel mower - Scotts 16" elite.

It's doing fine, with that much sun it'll come through, but my advice stands--Stop by the store & grab the fish fertilizer, you will not regret it

General care for established, full sun bermuda goes like this.

• Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means 1 inch all at one time. Infrequently means to allow the soil to dry out completely at the surface before watering again. In the winter that means once a month. In the hottest heat of summer that means once a week. If the temps get above 110 for a week, then go to once every 5 days.
• Mulch mow at the mower's lowest setting once or twice a week depending on how fast the grass is growing.
• Fertilize once a month with a high N low to zero P and K fertilizer. If you have a good soil test that tells you it needs P or K, then bring in some P or K to the mix.

That routine should keep the lawn dense enough to fight off weed pressure and keep it from getting a disease.

reeljake - Thanks for the tips. I am trying some fish fertilizer right now on some brown pieces of sod - I think it is working.

dchall - since this is new sod, what about a winterization fertilizer? surely it shouldn't be a high nitrogen one? what about a 1-0-4 ?

I'm glad to hear the fish fertilizer is working for you, it's tough to go wrong with that stuff. For winterizing, quick release high nitrogen is the way to go--You're just feeding it a quick meal before bed, but we have at least another month before that with this crazy weather. Did you get any of that rain yesterday?

When the grass stops growing, but before it turns brown, hit it with a fast release, high N fertilizer. Urea is what most people use. If you can't find it, try Tractor Supply or any feed store. Water that down and it's good for the winter. If you do that it should be one of the early green-up lawns in the spring. If you don't do that, you'll be writing in here asking why your neighbor's lawns are all green and yours isn't.

One way to go wrong with fish fertilizer is to rely on it as your only fertilizer. Unless you have actual pounds of dry fish meal, you can't get enough N from a liquid.

Correct, it cannot be the only fertilizer in use.

How's the sod recovery effort? Hopefully your silence means the fish fert is working!

Hi, yes the grass is looking greener that is for sure! Not sure if it is the fish fertilizer or just the fact I cut back on watering. Had a lot of rain early in the week. My drains worked well to avoid pooling. Out of the 700 pieces of sod or so, about 3 died completely. These pieces looked awful from the install. I dug these up and replaced with topsoil/peat moss mix. I will post a photo this weekend.

Here's a picture of a neighborhood. The deep green lawn waters once every 5 days in the summer (picture taken in July). The rest of the lawns water daily.

updated photo! 3 weeks since install. does it look greener? one thing that surprises me. It isn't really growing? I haven't needed to mow it? want to try my push reel but it is barely long enough. I am going to get some winter fertilizer today. Temperature now mid 70's and dropping to 50's overnight in Houston.

Yeah my celebration has basically stopped growing vertically too but it's still crawling around horizontally. My tifway out back is still growing both ways. Don't worry, it's rooting & just keep spraying.

I just put in celebration bermuda in my backyard at my home in SE
Florida about 4 weeks ago. It was looking fabulous for the first 2
weeks, then about a week ago, it started to turn brown and stop growing.
I have a very sandy soil, and have an irrigation system in place. For
the first 10 days, I irrigated every day for about 45 minutes the
entire lawn. Then I cut it back to every other day for about 60
minutes. About a week ago, I cut it back to 75 minutes 3 times per
week. I cut it with a reel mower for the first time around day 10 at
about 2 - 2.5", then after a few days I lowered the mower down, I think I
got down to about 1.5 inches, maybe slightly less, then all of a sudden
it went from a beautiful deep green to patchy brown. I wondering if I
over watered it, under watered it, or scalped it or if it's a lack of
direct sun, since I do have significant shade. What I can do to salvage
it?

Bermuda does not turn brown due to shade. It thins out and the soil looks brown, but the grass itself still struggles. Besides that, Celebration is supposed to be more shade tolerant than the other varieties. I'm going with overwatering. I assume the sod is knit down to the underlying sand. Try to lift a corner of the sod. With sand you can always lift some but you're looking for a firm tug to get it up. If it peels up like a carpet, like no roots have formed into the underlying sand, then you have a problem there. The sod never rooted. With the water you gave it there should be full, rooted, connection to the soil/sand. Once the sod is connected you can back off on watering exactly like you already have. But you did not go far enough in backing off. Do you know how much water your sprinklers put out? At this point you should be putting out no more than 1 inch per week. I would back it off to 1 inch every 3 weeks applied all at one time. Measure 1 inch by setting out several cat food or tuna cans and turning on the sprinklers. Time how long it takes to fill all the cans. Mine takes 8 hours but I had a neighbor whose high flow system filled them in 20 minutes. Every sprinkler system will be different. Once you have the time to fill, use that time every time you water. Here's more on watering.

Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall.

Thank you dchall. I pulled up some of the corners. The most brown areas pulled up easily like carpet and appear to not have rooted much to the sand below. I could see just a few little white roots, but not much. The areas that were greener seem to have a few more roots, but still pulled up pretty easily. It's been about 3.5 weeks since I laid the sod, and at first it was doing really great, as it was in decent shape when it was installed. Judging by the fact that it is not rooted, I'm guessing that perhaps I didn't water deep enough, and the daily light watering kept it green, but didn't encourage root development. Many of the brown areas are pretty shaded, and some of the greenest areas get more sun.

At this point, what can I do to salvage the sod, get it green again, and encourage rooting? I also just ordered some organic 1-0-1 kelp based fertilizer, but not sure if I should even fertilize until the sod has rooted well.

Don't fertilize with chemicals until you have green grass. An organic fertilizer now should not hurt anything.

When they installed the grass, did they roll it down? The idea of rolling is to ensure good contact between the bottom of the sod and the top of the sand. Did they level the sand first or just lay it on a sort of bumpy surface? Bermuda can suffer through dry spells, so it's not dead. At this point the best thing to do is ensure the sod is touching the ground and water it. You can either rent a roller or just walk on every square foot of the sod to press it down. Water lightly 3x per day. Lightly means 5 minutes to max of 15 minutes. The idea here is to moisten the sand right under the sod. You don't need deep watered or soggy sand at this point. The roots will go toward the moisture underneath. If your sand seems to retain moisture then water a minute or two less.

Thank you Dchall.

I am in SE Florida. The lawn is in only part sun (a few hours per day max). Right now, we have a cold front, so temps are dropping in the 50s at night and 70s in the day (but sunny). It will be a few days before night time temps are in the 60s and daytime in the 80s.

Should I up the water now, or wait until the temps warm up to 60s/80s?

So I shouldn't worry about letting it dry out between waterings? It is in only part sun. Since I have rotary type sprinklers, 45 minutes is probably closer to what 5-15 minutes would be with full sprinklers. I was going to put out tuna cans, to ensure that it's getting about 1" of water per day.

Are we sure that was true celebration from a licensed grower? If so, then hit it with surfactant & more water to get those roots growing. If not, that looks a lot like shade damage on tif419 the way it's thinning out

Thanks. I will double check with the sod farm to ensure they are a licensed grower. But it was sold to me as celebration, and when I was quoting out prices, celebration was the only variety of bermuda available (most people have St. Augustine here in SE Florida).

I also put out a bunch bowls and tuna cans this morning and turned the irrigation on for 90 minutes (they are rotary spinklers), so I'll see truly how much water they are getting.

I'm thinking that maybe my main problem was cutting it down to low to fast, as I had read that .5" to 1" was ideal, so I was cutting a little more each day. I didn't even get down quite to 1", but the ground is uneven, so a little scalping occurred. It was growing VERY dark green and fast, and I am thinking now that may have been due to lack of sun more than anything. I had assumed it was growing so nicely because it had established, but maybe it was searching for sun. If that is the case, I took off too much green and maybe choked it, instead of keeping it around 2" for a while. The part that is the brownest gets a decent amount of shade and probably a decent amount of water.

I'll see what the cans look like. It's pretty cold today (in the 50s last night, high of 70 and sunny). It should warm up later in the week and I should be getting some organic kelp 1-0-1 fertilizer.

So I am thinking my current plan is 1) today get an assessment of how much water my irrigation is putting down and adjust so I am putting down about 1", and letting it dry out somewhat between waternings, and 2) putting down the 1-0-1 kelp fertilizer, and 3), mowing at no less than 2" until it comes back.

Thank you all for the guidance. Thoughts?

Here is the my theory now.

10 days after installation the celebration bermuda was growing fast and dark green and looked thick and beautiful everywhere. I was mowing it at around 2". By week two, I was reel mowing frequently, and started lowing the mower, to try to get it down to the recommended .5" - 1" height, but I wasn't catching the trimmings.

I think that since the lawn is in only part sun, that it was growing fast and dark green trying to get more sun. It produced a lot of trimmings, which I think ended up shading out the lower grass, and I cut off too much of the upper grass as I was lowering the mower. So I think I essentially scalped it and took away it's ability to catch enough sun light. I also had been watering 45-60 minutes every day (on a rotary sprinkler system that put out maybe 1/2" of water), so it wasn't deep irrigation, but keeping it green. I then shifted to 2-3 times per week at 90 minutes, but the grass was already turning brown and damage was done, so it was even harder for it to root then.

The good news is, that it doesn't seem to be turning any more brown than it was, and I think now it may have a chance to recover. The sun will move into a position where it gets more sun, the weather is warming up, and I will deep water .5" - 1" of water 2-3 times per week, trying to let it dry out a little between waterings.

Thoughts?

You should definitely collect your trimmings the first year to avoid thatch build up on the clay/peat mixture the sod farms use. The earthworms & wee beasties will help you break down the thatch after a few years.