[tampabay54]

Hi all,

I'm a lawn rookie and wanted to share what I've started to do with my back yard to get your thoughts, opinions, ideas, etc. My goal is eventually get a yard that looks like many of yours across this forum. Greatly appreciate your comments!

Background: We purchased a house in the Tampa Bay region in June 2017 where the builder laid St. Augustine sod in the front and side yard and Bahia in the back. The front and side yards were irrigated and the back yard did not have any irrigation. The sod was planted after a 2-3 week drought so it took awhile (and a lot of water) to make sure the grass began to establish itself. My wife and I come from the Midwest where we love the look & feel of cool season grasses. We have a dog and a couple kids so we were looking for something to replace the Bahia (crazy that this is even an option to lay down as sod) that had a soft feel, was durable, and could handle the FL heat. The Bahia sod that was laid down was poor quality and also included multiple other grasses - common bermuda, crabgrass, centipede, etc.

I made a decision to try the cheapest option and lay Bermuda seed in the back yard and let it overtake the Bahia. Before I laid the Bermuda, I thought it would be best to extend the irrigation system to the backyard to maintain a healthy yard, regardless of how successful my project was. The irrigation was installed on May 15th and I laid Hancock's Highlander Turf Bermuda seed on May 21st with their standard fertilizer (16-04-08 Lawn & Pasture Fertilizer). Last week, I added additional fertilizer to continue encouraging aggressive growth of the Bermuda. Currently, I'm cutting the back yard every five days with a 20 inch Scott's manual reel mower at a HOC of 1.0 inch.

Problems/Questions:
I want to encourage lateral growth with the Bermuda and based on the comments on this forum, I should be using PRG. Since I laid down the Bermuda seed four weeks ago, is it safe to begin spraying PRG?
The yard is poorly graded and needs leveled. My plan is to begin leveling the yard next Spring/Summer after a year of full growth. Does this timing make sense?
Eventually my plan is to overseed the backyard in the winter with Perennial Ryegrass, but from what I read, I should wait until next fall to allow a full two seasons of Bermuda grass. Is that correct?
What else am I missing and/or am I doing this completely wrong?

The backyard already looks 10x better this summer than it did last summer and in a dream world, I would've laid Empire Zoysia sod, but cost & time prevented it this time around.

Thank you all for your help and advice. Happy Father's Day!

 

[kur1j]

Welcome to TLF! I predict a +1 and a :thumbup: soon from other members as well!

I want to encourage lateral growth with the Bermuda and based on the comments on this forum, I should be using PRG. Since I laid down the Bermuda seed four weeks ago, is it safe to begin spraying PRG?

I don't have a ton of experience with PGR but I've not heard many recommendations for applying PGR to get the lawn to fill in. What I have heard lots of recommendations for is cutting low, Nitrogen, water and lots of sun for bermuda. More educated members might chime in on when its a good time to use PGR and it isn't (I'm actually curious myself on when you want to start applying PGR), but from my general sense is that if you want it to "fill in" don't use PGR. If you want it to thicken up, use PGR.

The yard is poorly graded and needs leveled. My plan is to begin leveling the yard next Spring/Summer after a year of full growth. Does this timing make sense?

You probably would be best off to wait on this until the grass gets established better. But when you go to level there is a thread that will give you all the info you need. https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=148&hilit=leveling

Eventually my plan is to overseed the backyard in the winter with Perennial Ryegrass, but from what I read, I should wait until next fall to allow a full two seasons of Bermuda grass. Is that correct?

You need to let the grass establish not to stress it out and make it compete for resources.

What else am I missing and/or am I doing this completely wrong?

Pictures would go a long way to get a better understanding of where you are at. Our visualization on how you describe your lawn and how each of us would interpret in our heads of what you have compared to what you really have could be completely different, so its hard to make a lot of recommendations based on solely a description.

The backyard already looks 10x better this summer than it did last summer and in a dream world, I would've laid Empire Zoysia sod, but cost & time prevented it this time around.

Nothing wrong with a good Bermuda lawn .

 

[Greendoc]

@kur1j There is a good reason why Bermuda and St Augustine are the dominant grasses in Florida. I am finding that out here in Hawaii. Side by side, Bermuda is a lot easier to mow vs Zoysia.

 

[tampabay54]

Thanks for the response! Definitely curious about PGR as my goal is to thicken up the new Bermuda and also need to see what I should do about spots that I need to fill in. I've attached a few pictures. The first two are close up of the grass showing how the Bermuda is filling in with the existing Bahia. The third picture is a larger picture of most of the backyard and the fourth picture is where virtually no Bermuda has grown in and shows only the Bahia.

 

[Colonel K0rn]

Welcome to TLF :thumbup: Glad to have you here. I can see how it would be easy to confuse the acronyms of PGR with PRG... plant growth regulator vs perennial rye grass

Refer to the Warm Season Popular Topic thread to find a lot of useful information for your warm season grasses.

You should take a minute to read the Bermuda Triangle. In this, you'll learn about the two chemicals that most Bermudagrass owners on here use to maintain their turf. One of them is Celsius, which interestingly enough, is labeled to NOT use on bahia grass. Use this to your benefit, and save yourself from having to do a complete renovation considering you've already got some bermuda that's growing in the backyard. If you could stomach looking at a mostly dead lawn for a while, you could spray it with Celsius, and have the bermuda keep on trucking while the bahia dies. Check out my renovation thread to see what happens when you apply Celsius to a grass that's not labeled as "safe".

Once you remove the competition for nutrients from the playing field, bermuda will take over. I guarantee you that.

I would suggest holding off on applying any PGR to your lawn until you can't see any dirt. Once you're at that point, and you are considering whether or not you need to verticut (I am almost to that point in some areas of my renovation from last year), then you should look at it as another tool to maintain your lawn. I would suspect it would be by next Spring after the green up, which would be a good time to get in on the PGR group buy I'll do next year.

I would recommend mowing low, often and getting rid of that devil grass bahia. I can't stand that crap.

 

[tampabay54]

Thanks Colonel K0rn. I'd love to get rid of the Bahia quickly but the two kids and dog use it too much during the day. Would you recommend spreading some more seed to fill in the spots, hit the area with more nitrogen, and/or attack the lawn in a different way (ex. seed and topdress)to continue filling in spots?

Thanks again!

 

[tampabay54]

@Colonel K0rn
Colonel Korn,
Quick update/question - my bermuda has slowly taken over the bahia, but I was wanting to help accelerate the process. I went to our local SiteOne and picked up some Celsius to apply to the entire yard on 8/27. I'm now noticing that the Bahia is turning purple and appears to be slowly dying. However, some of my bermuda throughout the yard has turned black and brown. Do you know what happened or anything I can do to save the bermuda?

Any help from you or the experts would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Movingshrub]

That's atypical of Bermuda. You sprayed Celsius or something else?

 

[tampabay54]

@Movingshrub
Celsius at 1.13 oz mixed with 2 gallons of water for a 2k backyard. The Bermuda grass is Hancock Highlander seed that was originally seeded in May. Here are some pictures to show what it's doing to the Bahia, some of the Bermuda that has turned a different color (black & brown), and some that still looks healthy.

 

[Movingshrub]

It's hard to tell from the photos but I don't see bermuda.

 

[Movingshrub]

Also, did you do 1.13oz or 0.113oz of Celsius per 2 gallons?

 

[tampabay54]

Just double checked everything after reviewing and it appears I nuked my yard...1.13 was used vs 0.113...

I'll blame on lack of sleep with a two week old at the house. Any suggestions on how to handle now? Am I SOL?

 

[Movingshrub]

It'll grow back eventually. Just stick with a good fert, irrigation, and cutting schedule.

 

[Colonel K0rn]

Wow, yeah, that's a pretty heavy application of Celsius. Your yard will be fine, it's just going to be stunted pretty good with that heavy of an application. Just keep it watered, fed, and mowed. It'll come back. We're lucky that we grow a very tolerant and resistant grass.