Are there rocks under the surface in just a few places or all over the yard? You can poke with a screwdriver to see how far down you can go before hitting a rock. Are rocks common for your area? Do your neighbors have rocks? Yes, rocks are a problem. Getting rid of them would be a tremendous undertaking if you would be digging up the whole yard (if you dig make sure to mark utility lines to avoid). Just adding soil could mess up the drainage for the property (make sure everything drains away from the house). It would also affect sidewalks and other hardscapes (you wouldn't want the sidewalk to be lower than the ground). Adding too much soil can kill your trees by depriving the roots of oxygen. Either way you'd want professional help to make sure it's done right. The other thing to do is live with it. You would need to water more often, monitor for nutrient deficits. I suggest you contact a reputable landscaper and get advice. Find out as much as you can about why the rocks are there and how much of your property is affected.

I agree with you that bermuda should spread given any small amount of soil. Is there any shade over the thin or bare areas?

Bermuda roots go very deep, the rocks will prevent that. It may still spread but those spots will never be healthy with the rocks down there.

@beckyinrichmond I walked around my back yard with a screwdriver a little bit ago. The back yard is where this issue is. It seemed like 8 out of 10 times I poked the ground, I couldn't go more than an inch without hitting rocks. This was true in the thin and bare areas as well as the thicker areas. So, now I'm even more confused.

As far as the rocks being there in the first place, I figured they were just put down to try and fill the yard. Maybe there is a reason for them that I'm missing. Drainage maybe. As far as neighboring yards, I'm not sure. I had asked a few neighbors months ago about the sprinkler valve locations, and no one had any idea, so I'm assuming they wouldn't know about this either.

I did forget to mention that the back yard, where I'm looking at, is sloped. I think it goes back 50 or 60 feet and from the house to the back of the property line. The total slope is gradual and even and goes down about 3 feet total. Before we bought this house I had a few landscaping companies do estimates on possibly leveling it out. The estimates were so insanely all over the place I didn't feel comfortable with any of them, so I didn't have the work done. I'm glad we didn't waste the money. We are happy with the yard now, except for the thin and bare spots.

@dchall_san_antoniono no, no shade. It's wide open yard, getting good sun.

@reeljake so, would you recommend adding more dirt or removing the rocks, or some other approach?

I might remove the rocks in spots that are obviously suffering & see if that perks them up. If the rest of it looks good, don't waste the sweat

We have the same issue in our front yard and believe it is gravel put there by the builder. I can't dig in any one spot without hitting the gravel and when I planted a vitex tree a couple of years ago I removed a bucket full of the small rocks in a 3'-wide area.

In our case this area is what is known as the "bathtub" part of the yard where water runs in and may stagnate. There is a slight slope that runs down toward our home, so they probably poured the gravel down there to help it drain. It was no doubt compacted by construction machinery also. Despite those attempts this area is still soggy and in early spring is full of slime mold, so the gravel didn't even do what it was intended to do and makes planting any groundcovers very difficult.

We put in a drainage tile that helped a lot with the water.

The weeds, of course, love this spot.

Is your area in full sun? Ours is in part shade which creates added problems because Bermuda does not tolerate much shade. Instead we have lots of moisture loving, shade loving weeds.

If you have the sun that is what is giving your turf a fighting chance though the gravel being there will prevent it from really thriving.

@Elizabeth zone 7 Upstate SC Yeah, full sun. There were some Leyland Cypress privacy trees when we bought the house. I think there were 13 of them. We removed them all, and I got the Bermuda growing over all but one of the locations. I leveled the tree locations by taking some dirt from the front yard. The Bermuda quickly spread over the 13 spots like it should, which further confused me about the thin spots. One of the thin spots does look a bit moldy on the surface now that you mention it. I guess its from when it rains, it does seem to puddle up in these areas a bit.

@reeljake I've been leaning toward digging up a 3'x3' area, in one of the thin areas and getting the rocks out and filling it back in to see if it helps. If I did that, what would I need to fill it with? Compost, top soil from lowe's or home depot, or what?

Great you have sun. That's a big help. It's worth a shot just to see how the turf does without the gravel there. I would say native soil is fine if you have any around mixed with some mushroom compost. My approach has been living with it so far. I aerate yearly and mow whatever chooses to grow in such an inhospitable area. Post your results!

I forgot to mention that I have no native soil left to use. We did a small project out front that included shrinking one of the mulch beds so we had enough dirt from that to fill in where the trees were. We have none of that left. So, with nothing in hand, what would be best to fill the area where I pull rocks from?

I'll definitely let you guys know how it turns out. Whatever I end up doing. I really appreciate the input from everyone.

Don't see what choice you have but to use some kind of bagged soil. Not sure that it matters which one. You know that Bermuda is not that fussy and grows vigorously wherever it is planted and many more places it moves into without invitation! It's not called Devil grass for no reason. Just buy what suits your budget. Till It in with surrounding native soil. It doesn't need much extra help of especially fertile matter, just water and sun.

Shallow soil with lots of rocks can hold heat much longer than moist
soil below the surface. It might be the heat from the rocks that is
keeping the grass from growing.

I would go back to the landscaping estimates. Throw out all the estimates where they do not plan to use a tractor and box blade. If they propose to use a skid steer or bobcat, they don't know what they're doing. If there are lots of rocks under the soil they can scoop up the soil/rocks with a front end loader, haul it away in a dump truck, replace it with another dump truck full of soil, and smooth it out with the tractor and box blade. It would very likely be the same tractor with the front end loader and the box blade in front and back. If there is a sprinkler system installed, kiss that sucker good bye before you start, because you're basically starting all over.

If you decide to start all over and want a really, really nice bermuda lawn for not much cash, simon_r, from Australia, had a brilliant solution a few years ago.

Thanks for the advice and the tip about the heat dchall_san_antonio. That's not something that ever crossed my mind. Also, I went and read through the post about the guy in Australia. His results are amazing. Really.

For me however, for now at least, I've dug out two different sections of thin areas. About 2 feet by 18 inches each. I dug about 6 inches deep and pulled out many of the rocks - a dozen or so the size of baseballs. I then dumped the dirt and packed it back into place. I'm going to give it a couple of weeks and see if the Bermuda covers these spots like it should. The spots are on the edge of good, full areas. If it works then I don't mind putting in the time to do the same to fix the larger areas that are an issue. I'd love to redo the whole yard and get good growth going but I just don't have the time to spend on it. So, I'm just targeting the spots that are bad (the two big ones are roughly 10 feet by 15 feet, or so, and there are small spots here and there).