You cannot have it both ways. If you want Princes, then you have to prepare the planting bed. Only other way is sod, but even that requires grading.

It's a piece of cake it just costs $.
Start off with Roundup, the biggest bottle you can find or use the roundup pro if in your budget. Then spray it all over the grass you want to kill. Then wait a week and do it again. Then wait two weeks and do it again. Just keep repeating until it's all done. Scalp the dead grass by mowing as low as possible. Even better if you can remove the wheels from your mower to get down to about half inch. Then fill in any low spots with soil if necessary and you can broadcast seed over the area. Then from here out you follow the directions on the bag or from the seed dealer.

The lawn fairy isn't going to come by, wave a magic wand, and poof - new bermuda lawn. If you want to install a new lawn, you have to kill off the old one and replant. It isn't that hard, but you will have dead grass for a week or so and then a bit of a mess for a couple of weeks until the new grass starts growing.

Bermuda Princess 77 makes a beautiful lawn...

Go for it!

Forget centepede, is not dark green. Bermuda wins hands down - specially Princess 77.

TifBlair Centipede is pretty dark. Just as dark as Bermuda.

I don't think so. Centipede is Apple green in color no matter how fertilizer. In fact, if you fertilize it too much, you'll kill it.

I'm not fond of Bermudagrass because up here in NC is brown for much of the year, but if I had to decide between the two I will definately go with Bermuda.

Also, depending on where you are located (zone) it might not be cold hardy.

My neighbor's TifBlair Centipede is just as green as my Tifway 419 Bermuda.

Just sayin'.

All the information I've read does not mention color improvement, which in Centepede will be a huge thing. If Tifblair Centepede was a dark green as Bermuda Tifblair, it will be all over the place. The fact that they don't bother to mention the color says it all.

Centepede is Apple green in color, lacy's man grass for the deep south. Poor cold tolerance north of Macon, GA.

Picture of Tifblair Centepede --> http://www.seedland.com/seedland/images/centipede/tifblair-field.jpg

It's a good grass for Florida, southern Louisiana, southern Alabama, and most of Texas.

Info --> http://www.sandhillturf.com/TifBlairCentipede.asp

Where are you located?

SE Coastal NC. We have mild winters. Usually no snow at all.

Near Willmington?

SW of Wilmington. Just across the Intracoastal from Southport. Just East of Holden Beach. Oak Island used to be Long Beach and Yaupon Beach, but cosolidated about 10 years ago.

Cool. What kind of grasses do you grow down there?

Any warm season grass. Centipede is by far in most yards. Bermuda and Zoysia are spread here and there. St Augustine is becoming more popular.

Centipede popular in Wilminton, NC - interesting. The grass goes dormant in the winter I'm sure, for how long?

St. Augustine is a terrible looking grass, it sort of looks like cultured crabgrass. I know is very popular in Florida because of its shade tolerance, but it's so ugly. The blades are so thick and grows so fast.

Zoysia makes the best appearance of the warm season grasses, look at this:

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It's Cavalier Zoysia. It looke very much like Emerald.

Wonderful turf, extreamely dense.

Your B-419 makes a great turf under the right conditions, could you post some pics?

Centipede is usually dormant from mid-late November to Late March.

Man, that Zoysia looks awesome. Where did you get the pic? Is that your yard?

I'll see if I can get some pics of the Bermuda....where it's not being invaded by centipede.

What? Bermuda being invaded by Centipede??? You must be kidding, right? Unless is in the shade, I can't see Centipede overtake the Bermuda. In fact, the opposite, Bermuda is the king of encroachment.

That's my neighbor's Zoysia just sodded in late July las year. It does not look that good right, it suffered extensive winter damage. It's just recuperating from the injuries. He has since purchase a "reel" type mower, and the lawn is getting better every day. He promissed me he is going to let use the reel mower to cut my bluegrass in the fall - I can't harly wait. I'm going to bring it down to 1" to imitate blue carpet...