I am looking for some advice on killing off a degraded bermuda grass yard. I am located in Albuquerque, NM.
Over the past few years I have worked on transforming the old raised beds around the perimeter of my backyard into native plant meadows with ~25 different species of shrubs, grasses, and perennial flowers established at this time. Pictures show part of this area. I'd estimate the area restored so far is about 450-500 sq ft.
I now want to tackle the rest of the backyard. I'd estimate the total area I'm going to be working on is about 2,000 sq ft, but some of that already has some trees/shrubs, or doesn't have much grass growing at all. This part of the yard has a neglected bermuda grass lawn that I never water or care for. It greens up with the summer rains and that's about it.
So far I have done two herbicide applications to the bermuda grass. I have professional experience with pesticides, and using it in a limited manner as a part of this project is not a concern to me. There has been no unwanted impacts to other plants in my yard so far. I am now moving on to manually digging up the bermuda grass I have killed with herbicide applications. This is super labor intensive and not fun, ha! My next step in the plan is to mulch with woodchips over cardboard to smother the bermuda as much as possible, and plant into the mulched areas.
My questions for anyone with experience–Are my efforts to eradicate the bermuda grass futile? It seems like so much work for something that might fail in the end anyway. My hope is by using all the methods-herbicide, digging, smothering-I will have a chance at getting rid of it although it will likely always require some maintenance to keep it away. Also, is the cardboard sheet mulching necessary/helpful? I would love to be able to sow seeds but seems like the cardboard would prohibit that method of establishing plants in the area.
I would appreciate any advice, ideas on plant selection for the future native gardens, or anything else. Thank you!
by EmbarrassedPlant1902
3 Comments
I’m a similar boat. My understanding is that you will never fully eradicate it so you need to be ready to do continual maintenance, but with dense planting over time the shade will weaken it.
I’m working on something similar. I solarized and removed an entire gardens worth of Bermuda sod, and it’s still periodically still sprouting up. I’ve been pulling every blade that emerges to remove all of the roots energy, and then planting a ground cover (frog fruit) to slow it down. I don’t think it’s possible to fully eradicate it, unfortunately.
Also Is that Sideoats grama?? I’m trying to grow a bunch from seed and they stagnated after sprouting. Did you grow yours from seed? How did it go?
First, you are doing an amazing job so far. Side oats grama is my favorite grass – this time of year it is so beautiful! I have mine intermixed with gaura and/or coreopsis – if those are native to your area, they look very nice together.
Bermuda grass is truly the devil.
The only thing that mostly works for me is digging it up whenever I see it, but the freaking stuff has roots running under my concrete patio so it keeps coming back in certain areas.