A member here has a beautiful bermuda lawn. He cuts it from 3/4 to one inch. Pictures and info on his "My Page" click the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: OKCdan's bermuda lawn

Wow. That is a beautiful lawn. I don't even aspire to that. I just want less weeds. Am I under the mistaken impression that mowing "HIGH" would help shade or smother out the weeds? I was thinking of mowing like at 3-4 inches? The OKC link says the mower it at about 7/8 inches. Any comments?

Different kinds of grass. Cool season grasses (KBG and Fescue) are recomended to be mowed high, while the warm season grasses (bermuda) is recomened to be cut low. I have no experience with cool season grasses. Hopefully soneone with more experience will help out.

Cool season grasses (KBG, Fescue, Rye) should be mowed as high as possible. I prefer 3.5" as above that it flops and below it seems to clump when growing actively. The last mow of the year (actually a mulch mow of OPL) was at 3 inches since the grass was at about 4" and was well dormant and my mower mulches better at the lower settings.

I've never lived outside of New England and can not comment on warm season grasses.

Its not really a difference of warm season vs. cool season grasses. Its a matter of mowing at the recommended height for your grass variety.

Bermuda should not be mowed at the highest setting.

Under low to moderate levels of management, Bermuda grass should be cut at a height of 3/4 to 1-1/2 inches, which may require mowing one to three times per week.

Mowing at the above height will encourage a dense, thriving turf that naturally blocks weeds. Healthy turf shades the soil so sunlight can't reach weed seeds ready to germinate. A thick turf also minimizes the physical space available for weeds to become established.

At what height are you currently mowing?

How often do you feed your lawn?

I have no idea how high I am mowing. It's not high though.
I have never fed my lawn, so I am investigating improving the lawn, not so much for the look of a lush green lawn as to just get rid of the higher weeds. I moved here 2 yrs ago. I mostly have been concentrating on putting some bones and beds in as the place was bare. We've been in a drought and have not had to mow often. Maybe that was a mistake, maybe I should have mowed weekly anyway for weed control. I appreciate all of your responses and will keep reading on this posting, and others on this forum. Thanks.

If you want to get a reel mower, and the people who have bermuda AND a reel mower all seem to recommend making the change, then any height under an inch is good. Bermuda golf greens are mowed with reel mowers set at about 1/16 on a daily basis.

the lower you go though the more your going to cut. basically I have found that with every generic lawnmower I have used the second from the lowest setting is pretty good. It's usually low enough to give a little of the rug affect that dchall is speaking of about golf courses. Bermuda is to be cut short, the taller it is the thinner it will be the more weeds you will have. a good healthy lawn of bermuda should look like a big mat, unlike fescue that is long and stringy. Just remember to keep it short.
You can apply CGM, Corn Gluten Meal, that you can pick up from your local feed store as a preemergant. If you already have weeds, like I do right now, I'm told that you can use a stronger dilution of white vinegar to kill them off. The word is that this is a nonselective herbicide, will kill anything, so be careful to keep it just to the weeds... a pump sprayer or even a hand held sprayer should be fine depending on how many weeds you have. I plan on using a little hand sprayer comparable to that of a windex bottle.

Good luck,

I don't profess to be an expert on bermuda grass growing. But, as intimated above, its kind of a sliding scale.

It depends greatly on how much you are going to do to maintain it. If you are going to fertilize as much as it wants AND mow A LOT, you can mow it low and it will thrive.

Watering, fertilzing and mowing less, you need to go some higher. As suggested above, probably no more than 1.5 inches.

Whether you just want to shoot for a decent lawn or a show stopper, will vary what height you should mow.

In my neighborhood there's a very nice house with very nice landscaping, but they installed a common bermuda lawn. It is well maintained but mowed at about 2+ inches. At that height it is pretty ratty looking all the time. Even in the sunnier parts of the yard it is thin. They never have any weeds, so I have be believe they must use a lot of herbicide.

I have to agree that bermuda lawn typically don't look good when mowed high. I tried to convince my neighbors that they look best when mowed low but they acted like they knew what they were doing...

Watering 3 times for 15 minutes each week and fertilizing once a month is what they do while I water my st augustine every 2 weeks and fertilizing every 3 months. How crazy that is.....

I've given up on trying to help neighbors out.