Bermuda/Fescue Problems

davep – posted 18 May 2005 10:27

Hi, we live in Raleigh NC. We purchased a new house last year in April, the house is on a .8 acre lot. The lawn was fescue but since the house sat empty for a while it was poorly maintained. We added an irrigation system and the landscaper put Bermuda 419 sod down over the trenches. They overseeded the rest of the lawn with Bermuda, he told me it was 419 but now I learn that is not possible. The seed never did anything anyway.

Now we have stips of Bermuda that are doing okay in some spot, fairly weak in other.

I am not faced with either killing the Bermuda and resending that we fescue or trying to get the fesuce to die and the Bermuda to take over.

Since it is difficult to kill the Bermuda, I was consdidering order Bermuda 419 plugsand planing them in the Fescue, will this work? Any suggestions would be appreciated.ThanksDave

ted – posted 18 May 2005 16:32

kill off the bermuda in the fall and reseed with fescue- irrigation guys always causing us problems with their reseeding efforts

dave1 – posted 19 May 2005 05:58

Can you really kill off the Bermuda or is it going to keep coming back?

Buck – posted 19 May 2005 09:11

If you really want bermuda, not fescue, it can be done as follows. Roundup everything you have, fescue, bermuda, weeds, everything. Do it again a week later. Prepare the base, rake, lime, roll, level, get rid of the irrigation trenches, etc. Then sprig it, water it and stand back. Did this my self about 10 years ago in Chapel Hill and in less than 6 weeks it was tight. Need quite a bit of full sun, but I guess you know that. I got kind of lucky with my project as a turf farm had been commisioned to provide all the sprigs for Pinehurst #7 when they built that course. They had some surplus that is now my front yard. Nothing special about it, just 419, but kind of a nice story.

Ted remains unconvinced about bermuda in our area, thinks we need a cool season grass like fescue. And some of this may come from NCSU that does a lot of fescue research, but mostly ignores bermuda. Check out any golf course in the area, bermuda fairways. So, it works here. I was admiring my yard as compared to the fescue neighbors this morning on the way to work. It’s not even very hot yet, but the summer wimp has already begun for the fescue. My 419 is just great. And for me, I want a nice lawn in the summer when we use it. If it’s brown in the winter I don’t care.

If you want a lawn this season, sprig it. As Ted pointed out, if you want fescue you have to wait until the fall to get to it.