Its a cool season grass that handles heat better than other cool season grasses......hence the confusion over warm or cool season grass. Do a soil probe to see exactly how deep you are watering. The soil should be fairly moist 6" down , but not soggy. Bermuda and Tall fescue are not a good mix. If you decide to switch, spray the tall fescue with 'Round up' before you seed.

Hi dchall:

Thank you for the response. I have a couple of follow up questions if you have time:

1. I am assuming you agree that moving from fescue to a Bermuda would be a good decision based on living in inland San Diego? This lawn also gets significant traffic from 2 dogs and a young child.

2. For sprigging/seeding Bermuda. Can I do it now? i.e. in the middle of summer? We have warm, dry weather in our area through basically the end of October, and often into November.

3. Would it be best to aerate the lawn before sprigging/seeding?

4. Is killing the fescue with something like round up necessary? Or can I just add the Bermuda and have it eventually take over the fescue?

Thank you very much for your advice.

I am shamelessly bumping this post to see if some of the people who are far more knowledgeable than me might be able to chime in on seeding/sprigging Bermuda this time of year in inland San Diego? Our summer starts late here, and warm (80+), dry weather can be expected through the end of October. Yard is 95% full sun.

Thanks for any input.

Bermuda seed is a losing proposition & sprigging will require a lot of water. Can You sod it instead?

I was hoping to seed or sprig Bermuda because I thought it may be easier and cheaper than installing sod. My thinking was that the Bermuda seed/sprig would perhaps grow pretty well in the next few months of warm sunshine we get here, and would eventually take over the fescue.

But if this is wrong or unrealistic, then I will look into sod.

You can try it, I've just found that by the time you factor in all the water, fertilizer, alcohol & Prozac it takes to survive a Bermuda seed attempt, the sod is probably cheaper. Do a search for some recent Bermuda seed threads on this site & you'll see what I mean. One guy bought ultra premium princess 77 & it still was a bust. Bermuda seed sucks, the sod is virtually unstoppable.

If you do succeed in getting the seed to sprout, yes it will take over the fescue easily

reeljake

Thanks for the response and information, much appreciated. If I go with the Bermuda sod, can I put it in now? In San Diego I'll have 80+ degree sunny days basically every day for at least the next 3 months. From what I understand, those are the temps that establishing Bermuda will do best in?

Thanks.

The bermuda will take over simply because the care you need for bermuda is certain death to many other grasses - especially northern grasses which don't belong that far south anyway.

Bermuda seed and sod need hot soil. Now is the time for seed, for sure.

Read this thread on stolonizing bermuda. We call it sprigging in the US. SimonR is the originator of the process for home sprigging. As I recall he had a full lawn in a couple months. He had grass to mow in 4 weeks and 90% coverage in 6 weeks. His cost was 25% of the cost of sod. In fact, here is a link to video of SimonR mowing his back lawn.

No need to aerate first. If you want to do something first, so what you can to perfect the surface to the flatness and profile you want. Never rototill to do this. Work at the surface to get it right. After he chopped the sprigs, he scattered them by hand, topdressed with sand to help hold them down and to make good contact with the sprigs and the soil, and watered many times a day to keep the sprigs moist.

dcall: thanks for the response. This is great information.

When I sodded my lawn last summer it was 90+ the first week, then rained the next 2 weeks, then back to 95+. Bermuda loves the heat, only shade will kill it

While seeding definitely is more risky and requires more time to get up and running, with 80-90 temps for 3 more months, the Bermuda will go gang busters. I priced sod and for 900 sq ft I believe it is at least $1K and could be closer to $1500. Seeding would be closer to $100-150 depending on the seed and what other supplies you need.

This is what my Bermuda looked like after 3 weeks. I planted it on June 25. I live in OC near Disneyland. The grass is 3-6 inches already. I watered twice daily for a few min each time. I technically cut it a week ago and messed it up because it was still damp but it looks to have recovered ok.

Hi Noah:

Thanks for the response and information. That is some serious growth in 3 weeks! Just to clarify, that was from a bermuda seeding?

Thanks.

It was from seed, but after hearing from someone more knowledgeable, I'm not 100% sure it's not also a lot of weeds. I did water the heck out of it 2-3x a day so maybe that is the reason for growth. I do know for sure that after 4 days I saw grass sprouting through the peat moss and by 1 week in, most of those were 1 inch tall.

I also dumped about 5-10x as much as they recommend, but I'd rather over seed than under because seed is cheap.

Here is how it looked on June 24.

Edit: Not sure if this matters, but I also laid down some Milorganite with the seed before adding the peat moss. Maybe the Nitro in that turbo-charged the growth?

I cut it today. Latest pics are below. Next time I'll do shorter but I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

Thanks for the update. I put down Bermuda seed on the weekend and will see how it goes.

Had you come here first, we (at least I) would have suggested prepping the soil and then watering 3x per day for 5-10 minutes to keep it moist. Do that every day for a week to sprout all the weed seeds before you put your grass seed down. After a week you spray everything with Round Up to kill the weeds. Continue watering the same for a second week to get the slow germinating weeds. Spray Round Up again and rake up all the dead stuff. Then you can be relatively certain you won't get weeds along with your grass seed.

I absolutely made that mistake with my first patch of lawn I planted in May. First mistake was getting too anxious and planting early. Second mistake was not taking the time to kill off all the nutsedge so 1/3 of my 800 sq ft patch has nutsedge. At least it is green, but that will be a major pain to address over the next year or so.

Lessons learned the hard way. Ugh.

Noah, in my experience nutsedge does not like deep and infrequent watering. It seems to be a swamp type plant that absolutely thrives in soggy soil. Since bermuda can do so well with almost no water, you might restrict your watering to help discourage the nutgrass. Now having said that, there is a plant that looks identical to nutsedge called green kyllinga. The best way to tell them apart is to look at the seed heads. They are nothing alike. Green kyllinga never seemed to thrive in my neighbor's yard, but it did exist through all sorts of rain and drought conditions. GK is not nearly as fast spreading as nutgrass, but it is persistent.

Dchall, thanks for the feedback! I'm hoping once I adjust to deep and infrequent watering, it will die back. I'm also noticing that cutting the lawn very short (2x week) has yellowed much of the nutsedge. When I watered daily to get the Bermuda seed up and running, the nutsedge grew to over 1 ft and even had flowers (sad face). Of all my mistakes, I'm most bummed about letting it get to that point.

Fortunately the nutsedge is green and doesn't stand out too much.

Noah, don't worry too much about the weeds. A top-quality lawn is a multi-year process. You don't get one overnight!

Look at Halosulfuron Methyl (Sedgehammer) to knock out the nutsedge. You can buy it in 13 gram packs. One positive aspect of nutsedge growing is you have an opportunity to kill the nutlets. Deep and infrequent watering alone won't kill the nutsedge tubers or nutlets.

Thanks tech biker! How old should my lawn be before applying Sedgehammer and during which season?

Any sulfur based sedge killer will work, go shopping!

Deep and infrequent watering alone won't kill the nutsedge tubers or nutlets.

Back in San Antonio I had spots where nutsedge was completely suppressed. The city dropped a load of new soil where they repaired our water meter. It had both common bermuda and nutsedge sprouting within a week. I never applied anything and both disappeared not long afterwards. In two other parts of the yard, both low spots, I had nutsedge that would recur when it got rainy and then disappear again as it dried out. The recurring locations were both in the sun at least 4 hours per day. The front water meter location was in the sun less than an hour. So it could be the nutsedge remains in the front location, but the lack of sun combined with the deep and infrequent watering keeps it down.

Original poster here. I seeded Scotts Bermuda grass seed 17 ago. So far it is looking pretty good (to me at least, haha). Some spots have really taken off and are already 3 inches tall. Some areas are growing slower and are still quite bare. The growth in the first 7-10 days was quite slow but it has really taken off in the last week. Watering 3 times a day (7:00, 11:00 and 3:00). Weather has been the same every day, 85-88 and sunny.

My 3 follow up questions are on mowing, watering and fertilization:

1. When should I mow the new Bermuda areas? I have read that mowing seeded Bermuda low will help it spread to the areas with less coverage. I have a Fiskars push reel mower.

2. Should I cut back to watering twice a day/once a day soon?

3. Should I add fertilizer soon? I used a Scott's starter fertilizer when I seeded.

Many thanks.

I cut it at the 2 week mark because it was 3-5 inches high (not kidding). I also cut back to once a day watering because I looked to be getting some mold. That is now gone and I have been cutting it at lowest mower setting 2x a week.

Thanks for the response. I am guessing I should cut back on watering a little before I mow so that my soil isn't too wet for the mower.

How low did you cut the first time?

I cut at about 4 inches I think. My lawn was still moist so it did create lines from the mower's wheels. That area eventually cleaned itself up but it did ruin the grass that was flatted by the wheels for about 2 weeks. Every time I cut I lowered the setting on the mower. Now I'm cutting on the lowest, which is probably 2 inches. I wish I could go lower but I can't for now.