Just curious how do you know you had common Bermuda?

As far as I know there is no way to get rid of the common Bermuda that you have growing with the seeded princess 77. Even killing it with Roundup would not work because there are millions of Bermuda seeds just waiting for the right conditions to sprout. Complete soil replacement about a foot deep might work. Doesn't matter anyway. It will look good if properly cared for.

Posted by texas-weed

"Just curious how do you know you had common Bermuda?"

I pulled a strand of each and they both looked the same except the one I believe is Princess is a little darker green, with finer & shorter blades, and a thinner stem. The "common" Bermuda felt stiffer and just didn't look as good. Of course I'm no expert, just making an educated guess. Really, I just want the Princess to take over whatever is there. But by rdaystrom response, that might be a tall order, huh?

Anyone else have an opinion?

Thanks for all the responses.

rdaystorm is half right. Bermuda and all the seeds can be eliminated, but it takes a lot of work. What you have to do is sterilize the soil down to a 9 to 12 inch depth. Only way to do that w2ithout chemical is solarization of the soil. The down side by th etime you can do that it will be mid August and not much time to get the area seeded and germinated with a good stand of grass. Sod is a snap.

One warning about P-77, it has very poor cold weather tolerance and winter kill rates run very high in your area of TX with P-77. P-77 is best used near the Gulf coast where they do not receive any freezing weather.

I'm in Northeast Texas and have had good luck with Princess 77 for several years now. A super cold winter may get me though someday.

Thanks for all the info. Here's a question. So if I were able to distinguish the common bermuda from the P-77, would it work to do solarizaton or Roundup on selected areas and reseed. Or do I really need to redo the entire yard? I would of course do this next year to have enough time for the P-77 to establish.

What you want to do is not practical and will not remove common Bermuda anyway you look at it. You are wasting your time. Whatever Bermuda mix you have will look fine. If you reseed every year with Princess 77 you might eventually get a predominance of the Princess but you will never eliminate all common Bermuda.

I am thinking that the mystery grass patches I have are Princess 77 Bermuda

Only way that could happen is if someone seeded it there. P-77 is a fairly new improved common variety that has only been on the market for a few years.

On a whim, I bought a ~10 lb pink and white bag of "princess" grass seed about 4 years ago, I sprinkled it over the fenced portion of my mom's 8000sf lot...I gave up on trying to keep it watered when the weeds got out of control and decided to hold off trying to do anything with the lawn until I could afford a sprinkler system. I only just learned that "princess" is actually a type of Bermuda and after looking at pics, I am pretty sure that's what this is.

Texas Weed could you tell from this pic if it is Princess Bermuda?
{{gwi:85418}}

It doesn't seem to ever get tall enough to even get nicked by the mower and its a very dense, pretty, dark bluish green. This is the first year that there is a patch big enough to call attention to itself, and there are several smaller patches I am finding here and there (all inside the fenced area). I suspect it is responding to the corn gluten meal and compost I put down a few months ago. I just love this grass!!!

Texas Weed could you tell from this pic if it is Princess Bermuda?Sorry I cannot. All I can tel you it is either a hybrid or improved common variety. If you seeded P-77, then it is likely P-77. Wild or common Bermuda grasses are not that fine textured.

Hit it with some urea or ammonia nitrate and it should leap out of the ground and take off.

That's probably Princess-77 Bermuda. It looks like mine. As far as cold tolerance. We just went through the longest roughest winter (2009-2010) in a long time. I lost patches of Sahara Bermuda and I lost some shrubs here and there. Texas Weed stated somewhere else that he lost 20 acres of St. Augustine grass to the cold winter. Anyway my point is my Princess-77 is still perfectly fine. It's a beautiful grass. It comes out a little later than common Bermuda or Sahara. I'm in the southwest portion of Arkansas about even with Dallas. We get Dallas weather a few hours after it hits them.

Cool, thanks!
rdaystrom you answered my next question about the cold tolerance since this stuff obviously had no problem with the record 3 snowstorm winter.
TW- Question, should I treat the whole yard with urea/ammonia nitrate,or just the patches themselves or the patches and a little around them to encourage runners? (I have huge expanses of pure weeds in the yard that I would rather avoid encouraging if possible)
Thanks!

Okay, one more Q: is there a source of ammonium nitrate or urea that would be considered acceptable for organic gardening? (I apologize in advance as I'm sure this is a totally ignorant question)

If you want the P-77, then buy some more seed if there is any available, or rip up sprigs from what you have and transplant them.

As to your question about Urea or Ammonia Nitrate neither is considered an Organic fertilizer, although I do not know why Urea is not considered organic because it is an organic compound. I guess because the commercial urea is synthetically made, but the grass does not know that.

Would cultural changes be likely to allow the lower growing Princess to "Take over" vs old fashioned Common Bermuda?

I would think that doing the Golf Course treatment -- Mowing really low and frequently with an actual reel mower for extended periods of time + tons of Nitrogen fertilizer would skew the balance towards the new/improved varieties that grow low and dense rather than tall and stringey....

Sure -- you would still have all the rhizomes deep in the ground to contend with... so it would keep popping up all over the place... but you could probably at least "Swing the balance"

Even if it didn't -- your lawn would look like a golf course... and the Bermuda would choke out everything else...

Unfortunately, any herbicide that kills Common Bermuda tends to kill most other varieties of Bermuda too...

Thanks

John

"dwrector, what did you end up doing and how does it look now? How did your P-77 weather the cold winter?"

granburyflowergirl,
I let both the P77 & common coexist, but I started mowing as low as my mower would go (1") and twice a week. As expected the P77 became denser and thicker. I believe I now have more P77 than common, and this would be season two since planting P77. Once I get the lawn more leveled, I plan on mowing down to 1/2" and hope this will weaken the common and allow the P77 to "take over." I asked this question before about cutting common lower than recommended, but didn't seem to get a definite answer, so I'm just guessing (& hoping) this plan will work.
As for the how the P77 did this past winter, it mostly survived except a few shaded areas that didn't get well established last summer, those spots died off and have not returned. And like rdaystrom said, it was a little slower to green up, I would say about 2 weeks.

Thanks...I can't find the seeds anywhere locally anymore.

dwrector, questions: how often/much do you water? and how often do you fertilize and what do you use?

You are pretty close to me so if your p-77 made it through the cold winter, then I am almost dead positive what I have is in fact the p-77 that I seeded several years ago. I also have some common B and a million weeds and now a $300.00 600sf test plot of Tech Turf too. This is the first year I am actually fertilizing and stepping up the mowing from once every 14 days..hmmmm...I wonder what my lawn will look like by next year?

John in SC, how is your grass experiment going?

granburyflowergirl,

So far this year, I have not turned on the sprinkler system yet, so nature has been watering lawn. But normally when there hasn't been rain, I would water once a week for about an hour per station spread out over several cycles. Basically, you want to get an inch of water down all at once. But since the soil gets too saturated to take all one inch at once, I run two cycles back to back. Search for TW's Bermuda Bible, that's where I got a lot of my info.

As for fertilizer, again I just follow the Bermuda Bible. I put down in early April Lesco 15-5-10 and about to put down Lesco 39-0-0. Check out this thread:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lawns/msg0418241326361.html

This is all synthetic though, so if you're organic maybe one of the organic gurus can chime in.

Do you have sprinkler system? If not, it's gonna be a pain to water unless you're lawn is small, IMO.

"This is the first year I am actually fertilizing and stepping up the mowing from once every 14 days"

That's great! Just be aware that Bermuda requires frequent mowing to really look good. From my limited experience, I can't imagine mowing (even at Bermuda's highest recommended height) any less than once week, it just grows like crazy. I'm mowing twice a week now and barely just keeping up. Good luck.

Thanks for all the great info, I downloaded the bible - I guess I have some studying to do.

I don't get why it needs so much mowing as mine has yet to achieve a height over 1". I have to mow now due to all the weeds but I thought/hoped that once they were choked out, the lawn would stay short.

I don't have an irrigation system - just a big sprinkler on stilts which I think/hope will be sufficient for now for the 2000sf backyard I am working on. I may install "Dig system" sprayers around the perimeter if necessary for establishment and extreme drought but I was really hoping for a low maintenance, low water lawn.

A golf course carpet looking Bermuda lawn is NOT low maintenance....

Bermuda *Can* be low maintenance ... but it will look kinda funny... It has a very clumpy/weedy appearance and an apple green color when you neglect it... It also doesn't spread nearly as well.... but it certainly is tough to kill...

The reason for frequent low mowing and high doses of fertilizer is that this kills or suppresses most weeds and other grasses... which are trying to grow up to a certain height that is about 5x the height of Bermuda... Many grasses and weeds will burn and die at Nitrogen levels that just makes Bermuda green up...

This culture is especially effective at controlling tall broadleaf weeds and grasses like Fescue and KBG that grow up into tall clumps and don't like being scalped... The fescue clumps in my Bermuda lawn are already starting to die -- they just can't take being scalped to 3/4" every week.. and the 3rd round of 39-0-0 really hammered the nail into the coffin...

I found that my own Bermuda (Sodded this fall) is already developing a strong root system -- It is already staying soft and green much longer than the Fescue seeded lawn (Also this past fall)..

The key to the drought resistance is watering culture -- Water deeply and infrequently and the Bermuda will be the King of the Droughts.. The only grass that will handle droughts like Bermuda is Buffalo grass... and it doesn't spread nearly as fast.

Thanks

John

"I was really hoping for a low maintenance, low water lawn. "

granburyflowergirl, I recalled you were involved in my thread about low maintenance warm season grass. How's the Tech Turf working out? You not like it? Because that seems to be the way to go if you're looking for low water & maintenance.

But if you're liking the look of Bermuda (& I don't blame you) then it's gonna require a little work than the Tech Turf. I think though it's possible to have a decent Bermuda lawn & not put in as much time as I do.

Here's what I would do, if you're willing to experiment. I would mow just once a week at 2" and water only when the grass needs it using the walk test outlined in the Bermuda Bible. I would leave all the clippings on the lawn and fertilize every 60 days instead of 30-45 days (w/ the clippings helping w/ some of the fertilization). Then after about 6 weeks or so, see if you're happy w/ the result, check your water/fertilizer bill, and how achy (or not) your body is, then you will have an idea of how to have a Bermuda lawn on the cheap :-).

Keep us posted.

John in SC, thanks for explaining the why, that's good to know and I'll keep it in mind when I am out pulling weeds in 94 degrees...I may change my mind about going organic (with the lawn anyways).

DW, I do really like the Tech Turf, it's starting to take off now with the heat - I am actually picking up several more trays of plugs to expand the TT area this weekend. But I'm having to pull weeds regularly and while I have been slaving over the TT plugs, this large P-77 patch pops up 40 feet away as if to taunt me! It is so pretty, dark green, thick and lush, and I have done nothing special to it, it just blew my mind as it literally looks like a putting green just landed in the yard.

I am torn...I have to keep reminding myself that this is for my mom who isn't going to water - ever.

Thanks for the great suggestion, I will experiment with the Bermuda and see how it goes... I may end up with a funky yin yang lawn of light green organic and dark green synthetic! Here is the latest Tech Turf pic:
{{gwi:107780}}

Another option along those lines is to mow 1x weekly, but just low enough so that you start to touch the bermuda... If it's Princess -- that means down around 1" or so.

As you said -- It will mostly be weed control and to keep growing Out rather than Up...

As others have mentioned -- Bermuda *Will* live on low water + low maintenance... but *Won't* produce a full, lush, weed free green golf course fairway... You will have a lawn that is similar to many of the "Old" lawns around here.... meaning a large collection of close mowed stuff that is Green.... Luckily, this type of "Lawn" is *really* rugged and will become well adapted to your area and culture... Whatever grows will be what does well on large doses of neglect... Green in the winter, green in the summer... Comes back year after year after year....

As an aside here... On my Buffalo adventure... My Tech Turf is growing well... The Shadow turf is still green, but not spreading much yet... I think June, July and August will be the test...

Thanks

John