If you have gotten all your information from Scott's, then they have a problem.

Bermuda is best grown at low cutting heights, not tall heights. When you mow at the mower's lowest setting, the grass will take on a horizontal growth habit. What you are mowing now are the stalks that the grass blades grow out of. You're mowing all the blades and much of the stalks. When you mow low, the stalks grow horizontally along the ground and only the grass blades grow upward. If you have a regular rotary mower, it might not go low enough to get this effect. Golf greens, for instance, are mowed every day at about 3/32 inch high with a reel type mower. Here's more general info about bermuda care.

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.

Mowing: Mulch mow at your mower's lowest setting 2x per week. At least once per week. Don't miss a week or you will be mowing the stalks again. If you see swirly circles after mowing with a rotary mower, then you have surface leveling issues. Let us know and we can help with that.

Fertilizer: Bermuda can take as much high Nitrogen fertilizer as you can give it. If you have the budget for it, fertilize once a month throughout the growing season. Then when the grass stops growing in the fall, give it one more application of high N fertilizer. This dose will help it come out early in the following spring. Once or more a year, apply an organic fertilizer. This keeps the other fertilizer working at its best. Organic and chemical fertilizers work differently, so you can apply both at the same time or one instead of the other. The organic will not burn.

Don't get tempted to overseed with rye or anything else in the winter. The oddball grass will delay the return of the bermuda by weeks or even months.

If you see thin spots in the grass, don't be tempted to overseed with bermuda. Seeded bermuda is a different kind of grass than sodded bermuda. When mixed it looks weedy. Thin spots in bermuda are almost always caused by shade. Bermuda needs full sun. It will not do well on the north side of trees, shrubs, fences, or buildings. In fact it will not do too well up close to the east and west sides of buildings, fences, and shrubs. Bermuda is terrible in side yards between buildings or fences unless the sun follows right along the grass from east to west. The point here being that when those trees get up taller and more dense, the bermuda will fade out on the north side.

I disagree with DC on the mulch mowing aspect of the above, but overall that's a sure fire recipe for great Bermuda. The fertilizer bonanza isn't really necessary, but it doesn't hurt

reel, are you a bag-it kind of guy?

The idea behind mulch mowing is to return the organic material to the soil.

The idea behind frequent fertilizing and mowing low is to keep it dense enough to prevent weeds.

Absolutely I'm a bagger. If you mow low, fertilize bermuda to excess & leave the clippings, you will be in thatch city for a long time. This is especially true on newer bermuda sod less than 5 years old, as the peat/clay mixture most farms use as a base takes a while to break down.

Returning organic material to the soil is great in theory, but in practice that's best used on mature Bermuda that has a healthy ecosystem to process all that brown gunk.

There is no low enough or dense enough Bermuda to crowd out weeds, ask any golf course in the south. They mow at ridiculous low heights & still have to keep up their preM treatments or the crabgrass & nutsedge comes right back.

I bag clippings, fertilize a reasonable amount & mow at a realistic height with a rotary mower. I think my lawn is 90% perfect. If I wanted 100%, I would do everything you suggested above, but still bag.

Thanks for the insight.

I want to thank everyone for their feedback. I guess since this is my first home and I am such a newbie on this stuff, my ignorance is showing. Right now, my grass's length is around 4 inches high as I was told that the longer the grass on top, the longer the roots. My thought was that since I have Georgia class, the grass needed longer roots.

So if I reduce the length of the grass to 1.5", mow weekly, remove the mulch, fertilize with the appropriate N levels about once a month, I should have a consistent green lawn?

It's a bit more complicated than that with bermuda. The structure of the grass is like a miniature oak tree, 70% Brown stem on bottom & 30% green leaf on top. This is why we scalp it down to the dirt each spring & then gradually raise the deck throughout the growing season to maintain that green top.

So I need to scalp it down to about 1.5 inches in the spring? Can you recommend a good fertilizing brand and schedule as well?

The entire plant goes dormant over winter, so yes you should scalp each spring (late Feb early March in houston) at your mowers lowest setting to remove last year's lawn. .5 or .75 inch is even better if your mower can go that low, just make sure you have a fresh sharp blade. Obviously you would bag the clippings & compost them if possible.

I like to use a local organic fertilizer called microlife but milorganite works great too. I use it 3 times a year, right after the scalp, mid April, then July 4. I switch to greenmax or another iron fortified synthetic as the weather gets cooler