Getting rid of Burr-growing weeds in Houston,Texas (Howe: houses, price)

[djtrancendance]

I have them on the ground and can't walk anywhere in my 10000 square foot yard barefoot (front or back) in Houston, TX without being stung. Note...I bought this house just a few months ago and, according to my neighbors, the old residents never cared for their yard.

The front is about 90% burr-containing weed and the back about 25%. They grow along the ground so, even on the lowest setting, my lawn mower can't get rid of them. I sprayed Ortho weed-b-gone on it in the front and had no absolutely no effect.
I've been watering and cutting the grass once a week since early March and fertilized the grass in late March.

I took the plunge and headed out with a shovel and top-soil to re-seed my entire front yard...in many spots the weed roots were so dense you could barely see soil under it (no wonder grass below couldn't grow despite all the watering I did). I almost passed out doing that, though.
I then seeded some rather aggressive Bermuda grass under top-soil I bought hoping it would kill the few remaining weed-seeds/burrs.

I wonder
A) If you think my plan will work for the front-yard which is "only" maybe 700 square feet.
B) What I should do for the back? At this point I'm almost ready to hire someone to bulldoze the back yard...are there any services (with specific names/contact info) that can do that sort of thing? Or...what other options do I have that will near guarantee 100% removal of burr weed so when I have kids in a year or two they can go outside barefoot safely?


Any advice is much appreciated!

[HookTheBrotherUp]

I reworked three lawns in as many houses I've owned, not because of weeds, but becuase I don't care for St. Augustine grass. I rented a sod cutter and proceeded to remove all the sod from my yard. The cutter slices about an inch or two off the top leaving behind a 22 inch layer of sod, which I then went and rolled up in nice little bundles. All can be removed in one day.

I then put up a hastily made sign advertising free sod, and my neighbors took it all away in one day. That left the ground bare, nothing but dirt. In your case, you can seed it with grass. In my case, I purchased a new lawn each time, tiff bermuda one time, emerald zoysia one time, and paspallum the last time. Each looks like a golf course, very nice. The zoysia was the easiest to maintain, no weeds could ever get a hold to grow, and I only had to mow it once every six weeks, or four weeks if it rained a lot. No kidding! One of zoysia's selling points is it's slow growth rate. However, zoysia is a fine blade, but the stolons are tough, so it is rough on a mower. I have a powered reel mower that cuts with a knife action than just whacking the grass off.

The paspallum I have now is nice, it is what is used at Minutemaid Park, and looks just as nice.

Good luck.

[SteveArmy]

I just partially re-sod my front and back. 90% of the time i just disturb the soil of the "dead" (weedy) area with a small pick then plug it with sod. after doing a small section i just get the hose and water the heck out of it while mashing the sod in to the soil with my barefoot. rinse and repeat. now the yard looks great. in many areas i didnt even dig, just squished the sod on top of the fugly area and it still worked - i do that when I know its going to rain anyway. over watering for a few days is the key really. I did about 40plugs a day for 5 days. I chose to ADD sod on top of the existing ones because I notice the tree seem to be killing some of the grass so it needed more soil and other good stuff on there
btw I now know why the grass from houstongardencenter is so cheap and why the ones from Lowes is more than 2x in price. The one from lowes look a whole lot better, super green and has shorter leaves. the one from HGC is like cow pasture stuff. its still better than the random weedfest