I also want to mention in the summer during the rainy months it does get nice and green on its own and if cut regularly it maintains a nice healthy appearance.

Since the grass rarely gets watered and barely fertilized it is pretty drearly looking right now. I did just spread used coffee grounds and alfalfa meal around and watered it in really good. If I do this 2-3 times a week how soon will I notice an improvement in the pure sand soil as far as becoming more like loam or real soil?

Honestly unless you change your ways or beliefs in watering, fertilizing, and mowing regularly, forget about it.

Berumida require montly fertilizer application of 1-pound of nitrogen per 1000/ft2, watered weekly, and mowing twice week. Unless you are willing to commit, don't bother wasting your time and money.

I am willing to commit. I was never a "lawn guy" but reading 30 pages here and your posts specifically Texas-Weed it has inspired me to take the time and effort. Now tell me more about this Celebration Bermuda which I don't hear much about on here.

I will mention I have read your Bermuda Bible and the OKC PDF document as well. Gave some great info, but I guess since I am in Florida with a much more sandy soil than in Oklahoma there is a different fertilizer requirement. I also notice you recommend Lesco 39-0-0. I have no problem using synthetic fertilizers, just hoping I can incorporate as much organic matter to the soil as possible. I have been a composter for years but pretty much incorporated that compost to my multitude of potted plants and trees rather than the lawn.

How many years of multiple applications per week of UCG, SBM, and corn meal, cracked corn, alfalfa meal will it take to notice a transformed lawn that is more substantial than typical Florida sugar sand?

Texas-Weed, I know in my first post I wrote that I rarely fertilized or watered, and that negligence is why my back yard is kind of pathetic. Since it was my back yard I didn't really dcare much about it. The front lawn stayed pretty nice all year round. As far as my negligence with the back yard I want to take the time now to do what is right. About an hour ago I just ordered a Scott Classic 20" reel mower with bag attachment and blade sharpening kit, so I think I am showing I am wanting to be more committed to the yard than I have ever been.

Uh, yes, that is a commitment.

If you do it right, you can have it look like this picture or better. This foot and lawn belonged to quirky quercus before he moved. It was mowed at 5/8 of an inch high.

{{gwi:121544}}

To do an organic bermuda lawn will require monthly applications of a high protein fertilizer. A lot of people doing this use soy bean meal from the feed store.

Excellent looking lawn there dschall. Any experience with the Celebration variety? From what I have read it sounds perfect for this area and much nicer than the Common Bermuda that is prevalent here natively.

I guess this is an open ended question to anyone that can answer it. How easy will Bermuda plugs spread through an already established, albeit thinly, Bermuda lawn? Will there be a problem introducing the Celebration variety to peacefully co-exist with the Common variety or will one try to dominate? Hopefully since the Celebration is a nicer and MORE EXPENSIVE variety it would be the victor.

I thought it was an excellent lawn, too, that's why I kept the picture.

It's not mine. I don't have the energy for bermuda.

Ok sandy soil is no real problem for Bermuda grass, what changes is water frequency and fertilizer techniques. Since sandy soil does not hold water very well means it needs more frequent watering.

Fertilizer is another issue, you want to use a slow release urea types. Otherwise like a golf course green made of pure sand you would have to fertilize once a week.

I know some will disagree with me on sand soil, but there is no way to fix it except to remove and replace it. There is no way you can add enough compost yearly to ever keep up. I mean you are looking at adding 4 to 6 inches of compost every year to make any real difference. Top dressing with ½ an inch of compost will help some and add micro organisms and nutrients, but it will never turn your soil into loam.

The Bermuda Bible still applies. Only thing that changes is time tables for you being in Florida. You would start sooner and go longer which means another fertilizer application or two.

You can try to use organic fertilizers like SBM or CGM, but since your soil is mostly sand lacking microbes, it may not work out too good.

Main points for you is to learn how and when to water, maintain the grass between .5 and 1 inch, and use a good quality slow release fertilizer regularly. Master those three things and you will be rewarded with a quality golf course like lawn.

Thanks Texas-Weed. That's a little disconcerting that sand will always remain sand. I figured after 2-3 years of contantly adding compost I'd get at least 3 inches of more loamy soil. I'm not sure how fast compost will last with Bermuda extracting nutrients from it, but I would think compost layers would build up faster than they would be depleted. I think the back yard is only a few hundred sq feet. I know when I add compost to my potted plants that once were mostly sand even 4 -5 years later those pots still have broken down humus mixed with sand. A lot of my plants are vegetables like Tomatoes and hot peppers so I would think even though grass is a heavier feeder than either of those eventually I would get a few inches of top soil instead of pure sand. I know when it rains there are worms and if I consistently spread UCG they will be ever more present. Worm castings + compost + sand would in my mind be more likely to be a loam even if I add organic material on my own like peat moss in small quantities.

TExas, you mention about mastering watering schedules and quantity. I'm not sure who it was, but they recommended a long soaker hose the length of the lawn and set it to trickle and then after 24 hours move the hose 18 inches and repeat cycle until the total lawn has been watered and then repeat the entire process again. Sounds to me this would work out as I have no irrigation set up to do this automatically. What are your thoughts on this method?

You meant CGM but I'm not sure if you mean corn meal gluten CMG instead of CGM, correct?

Texas I read that you are a sod farmer so I want your professional opinion on how Celebration Bermuda stacks up to other types. Thanks.

Yes I am a sod farmer in a river valley, it is all sand. In theory you can turn sand into loam. You would have to bury your lawn in several inches of compost for many years to do it. That is not practical IMO. Mulch mowing well add more compost in a year of mowing than you could add every spring assuming you do not bury the grass. After 25 years of sod farming, my soil is pretty good, but I would not call it loam. IMO save the black gold for the veggies and flower beds. I don't think you could ever apply enough to a lawn to do what you want.

I did mean Corn Gluten Meal. I use it myself at home, but not on the farm.

The soaker hose method you mention is for softening up hard clay soil, and DCHALL is the one who recommends it. DonÂt think it would work on sand as the water would just run straight through and down.

Yeah the soaker method I talk about is a cure for compaction. Sand doesn't compact - at least not enough for the soaker to work.

Thanks guys. What is the best irrigation method for a sandy soil without an irrigation system? I should probably start a new thread as this one is getting off-track a bit as I was initially wanting to find out the quality of Celebration Bermuda grass. The landscape supply company I can get it from won't be getting in pallets of it until 1/5/09 so I'd still have to wait a week or so.

Celebration is not that bad. Tifway II is probably what I'd get but I don't think it matters that much in your zone. Honestly, I'd take a closer look at zoysia grass like Empire. Less mowing, less fertilizing but same amount of watering. Same goes for st augustine floratam (big plus if you have trees and garden/plant beds because bermuda will take over them in a blink, zoysia will do that only at slower rate)

I am so sick of St Augustine. Everyone uses it here and I don't care for the ragged coarse nature of the grass blades. Not to mention to requirement to aerate and dethatch on a regular basis. Heavey feeders and water requirements. No thank you. Plus all the St Augustine sod I see laid down here is usually a bubmpy mess and brown dead patches. Again... no thanks...

Celebration Bermuda is a good quality grass. Mostly available in Florida. Good drark greenish blue color, very good drought tolerance. recovers from damage quickly, doesn't require as much fertlizer as some of the other hybrids. Just don't let it get over 1 to 1-1/2 inches.

lou_lidloather you say you would prefer Tifway II but from what I have read Celebration was a further improvement over Tifway types and is a rather recent variety where Tifway has been around since the 60's or before. Like I said Celebration is considered the new and impoved type of Bermuda. If it works in Australia Im sure in Florida it would work well too.

lou_lidloather you say you would prefer Tifway II but from what I have read Celebration was a further improvement over Tifway types and is a rather recent variety where Tifway has been around since the 60's or before.

OK just because Celebration is a newer release has nothing to do with its performance. Fact is Tifway out performs Celecbration in all test catagories except color.

Tifsport is the king of hybrid followed by Tiway, and Celebration trails pretty far behind in test scores

If you want to see how all th eBermudas stack up try NTEP

Texas thanks for that PDF. I like how detailed it is by location and variety of Bermuda. The Tifway and Tifsport both seem to rank consistently high. What is the price differential between those 2 and something like Patriot or Celebration? My guess is the Tifway/Tifsport will more than likely be double the price (or more) than other varieties of Bermuda...

No Tifway is usually the least expensive, that is why building contractors use it as it is the least expensive. Tifway has been around a long time and the commonly available so there is a huge supply.

Tifsport is higher as is Celebration and Patiot... Can't really speak for your market area, so do some price checks to get the real numbers.

Tifawy 419 is $85-95 per pallet here in the Atlanta area.
Pretty darn cheap.

Try something easy this year. Put in a sprinkler system. Then set the thing to water for 3 minutes at six in the morning and 3 minutes in the afternoon. POintless to water more than that. Funny because watering extremely sandy soil is almost the same as watering clay soil in my opinion. I know everyone will disagree with me on that but it is inverted runoff. If you can trick the roots to grow down to some degree with density then the roots will create a zone of moisture capture. Fertilize with whatever organic stuff you choose that has a high nitrogen equivalent to 1 lb per 1000 sqft per month but break it up to do it every week or two. This is like feeding a little babby who cannot feed itself. The sand cannot hold the nutrients for long period of time and if you water more than a three or 5 minutes the nutrients flow right down below the root zone.

The actual easy part is,,,,, Mow the existing bermuda you have low and twice a week while you do the above recommendations. The crappy bermuda you have might fill in and actually look pretty good.

Bermudakid, thanks for the sprinkler ideas. I have been watering the plugged areas every other day now and it is staying nice anf green. I have mowed it 3 times already even though the grass was never higher than an inch. I guess even in Florida the growth rate during this time of the year is slow compared to April/May. I am assuming though the established plugs this time of year won't really start their spreading until the soil temperature warms to over 70 degrees (I've read the ideal soil temp for Bermuda is 80 degrees). I am ordering 2 more trays of plugs that should be in tomorrow morning. Not cheapo though I think close to $5 a tray and with these 2 new trays my total cost is $20. I wonder if it would have been wise to order a pallet or if these 4 trays work of plugs will eventually BECOME my new lawn?

Yes you could have ordered a pallet and made your own plugs of sprigs at much lower cost.

How much is a pallet of Celebration? $150? $500? What is the growth rate of Celebration from plugs? Will it spread 10 feet in every direction from the plug over the course of a year?

I can't tel you how much, not my area of the country. But since there are only very few sod farms licensed to grow/sell it it will be high.

Celebration has the slowest growth rate of all theB ermuda grasses, so no it will not spread 10 feet in a year, no Bermuda grass can do that. Suggested maximum spacing is 12 inch centers to cover in one season, so I would say about 6 inches per year.

6 inches a year? That's all? I would never consider that invasive at all! Heck whatever weed grass I have now will creep 6 inches a month it seems even this time of year...

6 inches is just an educated guess. The main traits of Celebration is the highest shade tolerance of Bermuda, and slow growth rates. I don't have any experience with it. Seems to be exclusive to Florida.

Funny thing is the Celebration is touted as being shade and drought resistant, and the shady areas I planted plugs are doing remarkably well compared to the full sun areas that seem like they get scorched my mid day-late afternoon full sun. I live in Florida and with the drought, and water restrictions with only 1 day a week watering and no watering after 8am, these plugs are struggling (full sun ones-shade plugs are doing GREAT!). I am sneaking late night water from my rainbarrel that collects rain water from my roof, but I think if the neighbors caught me using my own rainwater they would still report me. The odd thing is I think it should be legal as that is water I saved and is not being taken from the aquifer.

I recently laid sod for my home with Celebration Bermuda and the three pallets cost $255 from an Austin nursery. The sod was dormant and a little dry and gray but has come back nicely. The grass in the sun is rugged looking and the shaded grass is out of this world thick and deep blue green.

Any suggestions on how to get my exposed grass to thrive?

Peppers,

I didn't read all the more recent posts in this thread but the more common tifway bermuda has ranked much much higher in florida ntep trials. You'd be better off with that.

You will more than likely find bermuda difficult to near impossible to procure in most of florida. Expect $250+ per pallet. About double what it is in neighboring states. Then again, in this economy, who knows.

The good news is it will perform nicely there and will not generally need as much fertilzer as it does in other parts of the country. Another nice thing about it is disease resistance and when you get summer monsoonal moisture, it will not grow out of control like st. augustine and bahia.

It would be interesting to see how Seashore Paspalum would perform.

Iforgotitsonmymind, well I called a few growers down here and the closest one to me is about $130 a pallet which is pretty cheap compared to what you mentioned. Had I known it was that cheap to begin with I would have went that route instead of buying a tray of plugs here and there. I think all total I have bought 6 trays of plugs. I think I will wait till the rainy season starts before planting any new plugs.

Well times are pretty tough for the sod farmers with sharp decline in new home construction and development so that's better than what I would have imagined. MAybe you could sod the front yard or high profile areas and plug the rest.