Any lawn experts here (hybrid Bermudagrass in particular)? (Home Depot, yard)

[Monkeyleg]

Thanks again for all of the replies. There's sure plenty there to explore.

Honestly, since my wife and I moved here, we've both commented numerous times about how much friendlier people are down here. This thread seems to prove that observation again.

[DvlsAdvc8]

I'm really starting to hate yard work. From what I've read, I should fertilize my bermuda a few times a year. I fertilized this spring, shortly after it started greening up. It never got very green.

So this time I chose a fertilizer with more nitrogen... now I have apparently burned it (so much for the "garanteed to not burn" statement on the bag). - or at least I assume its been burned because I have yellowing grass in nice linear patterns.

First it was weeds - I killed most of the weeds off with a ton of various weed killers and pure physical effort. One place says mow it low, the next says mow it high. Bag the clippings or you'll have thatch. Don't bag the clippings, they don't contribute to that, you'll just recycle nutrients. Not once has this crap actually looked a nice solid green.

Sigh. I'm ready to light the whole yard on fire and go with an Arizona look. For all my reading, effort and money, I have ugly grass. Burn, baby, burn.

[Monkeyleg]

Sorry you're having so much trouble, DvlsAdvc8. I'm 59 years old and I've been struggling to get a good-looking lawn for as long as I've had a lawn to care for. (About 31 years since we lived in an apartment). I still don't have it down.

I mentioned my neighbor having perfect grass. The neighbor to the other side of me had grass that looked much like mine: not deep green, with some small brown areas interspersed in the green.

Last week he said he was having a lawn service come out and do whatever it is they do. Within a couple of days his lawn was a deep green.

Meanwhile, I put down Scotts Turf Building Plus 2 Weed Control, and nothing looks any different. I don't expect the weeds to disappear in a few days, but I thought maybe something would turn greener.

[DvlsAdvc8]

Well... perhaps I spoke too soon. There are distinct yellowed stripes in my yard, but I honestly can't tell if that was where fertilizer fell, or where it didn't. The front yard, which I covered before the sun set, is a nice dark green (with a couple small yellow streaks). The back yard (~.75 acre), I did at night and might not have walked perfect lines back and forth. I know for a fact I put down fertilizer along the fenceline, and that is again... nice, dark green.

Maybe the yellow streaks only look yellowed now that I have kinda dark green lines?

lol

I put down the highest nitrogen content fertilizer I could find at lowes, which was scotts any season... with 32% nitrogen. Who knows? This junk is voodoo.

[DvlsAdvc8]

Going to run the spreader through a section of yard I'm 100% sure I didn't cover and see if it greens like the stripes... and if so, then I'll walk the yellow stripes again. Maybe the spreader didn't spread the fertilizer as far as I thought it was.

[Monkeyleg]

I think you'd be better off not trying to guess where you did or did not put down fertilizer. If you put down a double dose you'll burn the grass in that area, and it will take a while to come back, or may not come back.

[DvlsAdvc8]

Well, I'm pretty sure now that the "yellow" grass was only yellow in comparison to the new ultra green grass. I chose a small part of my yard to experiment with a control, 5% more fertilizer, 10% more and 15% more. Applying the recommended amount of fertilizer per the label, gets only a slight greening of the grass. Applying 15% more seems to break the green barrier and matches my darkest grass... lol. The grass that had the recommended amount looks downright yellow by comparison.

Oddly, I noticed that I had mistakenly applied more than the label suggested in my first run. I set the spreader at 4 instead of 3 1/2.

[Maya Blue]

Dvls,

You might want to bring in TruGreen (or similar company) to do your yard. I've had it for a year and a half now and love not having to put the ferterlizer and weed control stuff down at the different times of year and praying that it works. TruGreen has a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you are not happy with what they have done they will come back out and respray or do what is needed.

[Reactionary]

Be on the lookout for the book "The Perfect Alabama Lawn" by Steve Dobbs (with a foreword by the legendary Felder Rushing):

Get a soil test (available at Extension Service on Cook Ave).

Fertilize bermuda from ~ early May to Late August (no more than 4X year). More fertilizer means more mowing. I fertilize 1X year (so does Dobbs). Sometimes I use Ironite or Milorganite for a quick greening, but those products have some issues.

Mow high (~2") - limits sunlight available to weeds, minimizes soil temperature and reflective heat, better drought tolerance.

Change mowing patterns to minimize compaction.

Lawn clippings = ~4% Nitrogen - leaving / mulching clippings reduces added fertilizer needs by ~25%. 'BobWallace' made a good point earlier about bagging weeds for control.

[ashleigh2006]

I tried self treatment for a year and then asked a friend how there lawn was so well kept. They said Turf Doctor. Their treatment is great and will come out free for additional applications.