Converting St. Aug Lawn to Bermuda

[Alan]

I'm in Spring Hills North(~2 miles east of I-45 off of Rayford Rd.)

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

When you say the maint. is a lot with Bermuda, what do you mean, mowing? If that's the case I can handle mowing it twice or thrice a week, that's just more beer drinking time on my mower(rider). Fertilizing isn't a big deal for me either, I can handle that too. What I don't like is all the crap St. Aug. seem susceptible of getting, root rot, brown patch, fungus' and chinch bugs.

Thanks for your reply.
-Alan

It is the additional mowing and fertilizer. Some people get into bermuda believing it is a weed and will thrive anywhere. Well it might be a weed anywhere, but it only thrives with the mowing and fertilizer. Also if you want it to look good, it needs just as much water as all the other turf grasses. Yes it will survive months without water in a drought, but it will look dead while dormant. It only looks good when watered regularly.

Certain varieties of St Aug will have more problems under certain conditions. Mine tends to get brown patch but none of the other issues. It could have been your watering practices leading to the problems before. But good luck with the bermuda! It sounds like you will get along just fine with it.

[Alan]

Thanks, time will tell. I've got a spot in the yard that nothing seems to grow and I'm wondering if it may be contaminated dirt. Possibly from a bulldozer leaking something(diesel, oil, whatever) when it was parked over night-I don't know for a fact where it was parked, just a hypothesis. Could there be any validity to this? If you go back to my pics, its right in front of the nearest tree and its about 10'x6' or something like that.

I think my watering practices did exacerbate or even initiate my problems.

[andy10917]

If you think that anything petroleum-based might be at play, I'd start a regimen of regular BLSC or shampoo-based treatments. It could make a big difference.

[Alan]

10-4 on the shampoo treatments. I may have a guy with a tractor over to do some work and have him shave that section down and haul that dirt away and fill it in with something fresh.

Thanks.

[Alan]

Here are some updated pics of my Rye over St. Aug. You can see my dead zone still but I haven't given it any treatments yet. I guess I should get off my butt and get busy.

.

[Begotten]

sounds like you did all the same wrong things that i did with my st augustine; mowing too low and watering too much. just recently finished replacing it with bermuda also. luckily i only had about a 1,000 SF area to deal with.


any more updates?

[Alan]

Not really. The guy with the tractor hasn't called me back, so I guess he's not hurting for work. I haven't pursued anyone else with a tractor. I told my wife my intentions and she freaked out, so I think what I'm going to attempt is to do no dirt work and 'transition' the lawn(if possible). If you go to the "Southern Lawn Pics" thread you can see some pics from the other day. I think the back yard has the best potential for a speedier transition than the front because there's more Bermuda incorporated into the St. Aug.(check the pics out). You can see how low I'm mowing(at the lowest setting when I cut the back) so the St. Aug. should suffer while the Bermuda thrives(that's my attack plan anyway). And I'll fertilize the crap out of it and not water it so much.