Last fall my fiancé and I purchased a new home. It resides on 30 acres of land (26 or so of it is wooded hills) and 1.5+/- acres of grassy(ish) hillside. The immediate front lawn has some of the most beautiful Bermuda that I’ve ever seen. The rest of it is more weeds than grass. I have already begun hitting everything with 41% glyphosate mixed with dawn. I plan on laying down Yukon Bermuda over the entire lawn this summer and after a year of development adding some perennial rye to keep green year round being that I’m in the transition zone. There are a few challenges that I’ll be facing. # is the fact that it is on a decent grade. I may have some problems with seed washout. #2 the mountain that the house is built on has major sandstone deposits and has left large and small stones everywhere. And #3 the insane amount of weeds that have taken control of the entire yard.

Over the last month or so I’ve spent my evenings collecting the rocks off the hillside. In the end it worked out for the better because there is a natural spring directly above the house. We’ve created a dry creek to divert the water down the mountain and used the rocks to fill it. As to the very large rocks that can’t be removed. I actually enjoy them and think they’ll add some texture and depth to the landscape.

Today I begun spraying the lawn with a non selective herbicide to nuke everything and start over again. I’m assuming it may take a couple treatments to kill everything. I’ve read online some people saying to remove the dead foliage and others saying to leave it to protect the seed and to decompose. Any advice either way on that?

As for the hillside I’m just going to try to spread it as normal and hope it doesn’t wash out, and if it does then the aggressive Bermuda will spread to fill in areas that have washed out. If that doesn’t work I’ll lay down a burlap style erosion control mat next summer and attempt again, but I’m really hoping to avoid that step.

Does anyone have any other advice that may help with the process of this? Anything would be appreciated.