Well, I spent all last night pulling it up anyway. That part of the yard is shaded, but it faces south. The tree is on the south end and has shade over it, but in early morning it gets a fair amount of morning sun and in late afternoon gets some afternoon sun. Not a lot, but some. The weed was growing on the eastern most edge of this lawn, where it gets the most sun. Either way, it's gone now. For now. The house faces south. This is the front lawn I'm describing, broken apart by a concrete path. To the west of the path is a huge tree in the middle of the area (don't ask me what kind...). Further west on the lot is a larg side lot filled with mature trees forming a full canopy (partly due to lack of maintenance) so TONS of shade. It also borders the house so doesn't get much morning sun. At the moment it's still weeds, but if the front takes, we'll start planting shadow turf there too. To the east of the path is a similar sized section that has only a smallish crepe myrtle and very little shade. It's a corner lot, so it gets full morning and afternoon sun and a fair amount of setting sun. That's where the Bermuda is - at least some of it. And also a TON of weeds. Not the crabgrass like stuff, more like clover leaf (but not that). The plan to till was to get rid of all that. I spent a good 7 hours last weekend pulling up weeds from one small stretch and my hands and back are killing me. How would you recommend we remove what is basically a carpet of weeds? There is some bermuda mixed in, but for most of the area, it's 90% weeds. I'm sore :( Here's a picture of the soon to be bermuda lawn that's full of weeds, looking north from the street: http://cheriseandfredo.blogspot.com/2007/09/and-after.html There's lots of overgrowth of bushes and whatnot that need trimming too. Do you have a recommendation for a tree trimmer that won't want to go in and tear out all our trees? We REALLY like the shade (have a/c but don't use it often). We like the park-like look, but it's bordering on overgrown forest.... Here's a fairly good picture of our side yard http://cheriseandfredo.blogspot.com/2006/02/autumn-in-texas.html We're in Lavaca. Not too close to the River, but we can walk to it! Oh, about the shadow turf, so it'll pop up elsewhere, not just expanding from the main plugs? I have a few sprouts that look like it, but they're kind of isolated and I'm not sure if that's really MY grass or some weed invading...It is expanding. Slowly, but I think I can see it. It's good to know it took a little while before really hitting its stride. I was worried I'd overwatered it. I am about to go buy some more plugs I think.

Cultural Control: Removing Plants and Tubers Tubers are key to nutsedge survival. If you can limit production of tubers, you�ll eventually control the nutsedge itself. To limit tuber production, remove small nutsedge plants before they have 5 to 6 leaves; in summer this is about every 2 to 3 weeks. Up to this stage, the plant hasn�t formed new tubers yet. Removing as much of the plant as possible will force the tuber to produce a new plant, drawing its energy reserves from tuber production to the production of new leaves. Continually removing shoots eventually depletes the energy reserves in the tuber, because the nutsedge will have to use 60% of its reserves to develop the first plant and 20% for the second. However, mature tubers can resprout more than 3 times. Even though these newer sprouts start out weaker than the previous ones, plants can develop from them and produce new tubers unless you remove them. The best way to remove small plants is to pull them up by hand or to hand hoe. If you hoe, be sure to dig down at least 8 to 14 inches to remove the entire plant. Using a tiller to destroy mature plants only will spread the infestation, because it will move the tubers around in the soil. However, repeated tillings of small areas before the plants have 6 leaves will reduce populations. If you find nutsedge in small patches in your turf, dig out the patch down to at least 8 inches deep, refill, and then seed or sod the patch. Here is a link that might be useful: Nutsedge

Thank you, Mush, for that suggestion! We will definitely look into getting some of that stuff. "I hope you find a remedy soon...it sure makes for not wanting to sit on your deck doesn't it!" Oh, Liz, you're so right!! We have incredibly comfortable furniture on the deck (it's by O.W.Lee - the Montrachet wrought aluminum collection), and I would so dearly love to be sitting out there reading good book on my Kindle, sipping a glass of wine and listening to the watefall into the pool... I know that when the words "redwood deck" or just the word "deck" is used, most folks envision something elevated. But our redwood deck is ground level. Because of the way the yard has to be graded (for the water runoff swale), we couldn't do a concrete patio. Well, we could, but in some places it would have to be three feet (or more) thick. So, we opted for a redwood deck (which I prefer, anyway). Here's a photo of what we refer to as the "east wing" of the deck. (It's so named because it's on the east side of the house.) There is a walkway that connects it to the large main deck, but it's all on the same level. This photo was taken in 2004, when the yard was torn up because we were putting in a pool. All that dirt that you see heaped up in the upper left of the pic is part of what came out of the hole that was created to become the pool -- that area of the yard is actually the side yard on the east side of the house. Our lot is sort of pie-shaped so the side fences really angle away from the house rather than run parallel to it. Anyway, hopefully this will help you folks to understand how our deck is constructed and why we can't just get under there to find out what's going on. If you look closely at the photo, you can see that there aren't any nails or screws showing, which is why we can't just pull up a few boards to look underneath. Each board is nailed to the board next to it by nails that are in the sides of the boards...

Staining pine is always the hardest thing to do. It has extreme density differences that produce the kind of variation you are seeing. The Minwax Polyshades is a horrible product, I've never seen a good outcome come of it. I'd strongly advise choosing wood that is the color you want to start with and avoiding stain all together. If you must, sand back to bare wood, apply a seal coat of dewaxed shellac and then spray an alcohol soluble wood dye, eg TransTint (not an oil stain) over it, then finish. Pine frustrates the best pros, I'd just paint it and be done. If you must have stained pine take it to the best finisher you can find and let a pro do it. To be blunt, those are not boards I'd mess with for anything other than framing or concrete forms.