I know this is ridiculously late (like a year!), but, in case you haven't had this question answered, the grass you see here is Kentucky 31 Fescue, AKA "Pasture Grass". VERY common here in the Kansas City area, especially the suburb areas (which used to be pasture land!) When you buy TTTF fescue here in the midwest, you get half K-31. It's ugly, and extremely tough. It's what they use to seed Football fields. Almost indestructible. I have seen people kill it with boiling water. It's about the only thing that works. The only way it looks good is if you lawn is 100% K-31, you mow it 4.5" tall, and you're viewing it from 100' away. My front yard is mostly TTTF, back yard is 50/50 TTTF and K-31. (where the Grand-kids play baseball... Can't kill that stuff!) Bill

Nutsedge will blow itself through most plastic and fabric. The tips of nutsedge, especially when young, are sharp and stiff/strong. It is a beast of a horrible weed. It's easy to pull, but it can reproduce very easily from tuber pieces. The best management is to kill/pull (I prefer pulling) when *VERY* young...before they have a chance to set or recharge their tuber. Start pulling and keep pulling (especially before it sets seed) for the next few years...or you can use a herbicide treatment, but given that can take days I wouldn't want to give nutsedge any advance vs. pulling. Eradication is very very hard. There's no spray and walk away forever treatment for it. You'll need some patience, but at least it's a small plot to watch over and control.

red_geranium refects my experiance. Except for 2 spots I had. One an ally bed that got blazing west sun. I put up that cute little wire bed edging fence. Laid down a thick layer of wet newspapers, then proceeded to dump grass clippings and shredded leaves. Layers and layers of them up to the top of that wire edging...over a period of about 9 months and then let it just sit. I pulled any weeds or grass that did poke through. Not much did and it was easy to pull due to the composting going on underneath. . Then I planted the whole thing with huge red cannas and artemisia at the front. Very little grass and weeds grow there now. It worked for that area, because it was in the alley and I could just leave it that way for a long time before planting. Once planted no light gets to the grass so it doesn't try to grow anymore, by the time it warms up enough to trigger the grass the cannas have blocked the light from getting through. The other area was along the side of the house. I did pretty much the same thing. It took several years of constant composting to kill off the grass. But I also had to do a lot of pulling as well. It wasn't planted with cannas, but daisies, roses and moonflower bush and 4 o'clocks. I still had to weed and pull grass in that bed but it was much easier to pull stuff out since the clay had turned to nice garden soil. Most people don't want a huge pile of composting going on in their beds for over a year, and don't want to plant as thickly as I did, so yes, you have to kill the grass first.

Best way--and hardest work--is to just keep pulling the bermuda grass out. Water well, then start pulling when the soil firms and water has soaked in a bit. There are a number of herbicides that target grasses, however few of them have labels for flower beds. In some cases, the grass herbicides will also have some activity against certain broadleaves, so if you go off-label and just try something, you might get a few of your flowers as well. You might look at Preen in a small area as it is recommended for grasses, but don't know what it may do to the plants you want.