madge@arkansas.net – posted 07 July 2003 17:00
We just bought a new house with Bermuda grass and we would like to know the recommended height to mow in summer and the rest of the year, and how often should we use weed & feed? Should we mulch the cutting and leave them on the grass? We will be living in Rogers, Arkansas.
Dchall_San_Antonio – posted 07 July 2003 23:28
I’m pretty sure the recommended height is 1/2 to 1 inch year round. Mow every week to keep it nice and soft. If you let it get tall, it tends to shade itself out, gets thin and weedy, and gets spikey and hard on the feet.
Weed and feed should be used zero times per century. It’s a poorly designed product that feeds the weeds and poisons them on the same day. Unfortunately, the poison only works on well fed weeds. So just about the time the fertilizer kicks in for the weeds, the poison has been deactivated by time and soil microbes. If you want to get that same effect, feed with a real fertilizer and two weeks later, spot spray with a weed-b-gone type product.
If you have dandelions, get a Weed Hound at Target for $20. That clever little tool will pluck out the root and all as fast as you can step on the things.
Mulch/mowing is an organic method. If you are going to use organic fertilizer and no chem-icides, it works great to mulch the clippings back into the soil. If you are using chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides, then I’m not sure it helps anything to mulch the clippings. They pretty much need soil microbes to decompose and all the chemicals work against those microbes.