naitve bermuda invading floritam

Cape Coral – posted 16 May 2005 11:58

Hurricane charlie left a mess. Large piles of debris. The city said they would pick up in a week, but took a month. Which left large patches of dead lawn. The tractors that cleaned up the piles of rubble “planted” sprigs of native bermuda all over the place and dug wide trenches with their treads. All of which coincided with the onset of floritam’s dormant period. The bermuda spread rapidly. Now, there are dozens of spots ranging from 1×1 to 10×30 where the native bermuda is established. The local landscaper says to round up and re-sod.

Does anyone here have any experience? Now that the floritam is starting to grow aggressively, will it choke out the bermuda? The worst place is in an area where the pre-charlie floritam was thriving. Is there a treatment that will tip the scales in favor of Floritam? Would it help if I aggreessively raked the bermuda roots and broke. Should I just forget about it and give the floritam a growing season? Should I pay any special attention to mowing? Maybe I should just round up the larger areas and plug them? Can anyone offer any advice. Complete round-up is just too much of an undertaking and I don’t want to go there unless I have to.