Landscaper put down Celebration Bermuda in our backyard after ripping out our St Augustine and grading the lawn a little better for increased drainage as we had an issue from the new construction. I hated St. Augustine, so he said Celebration is the way to go.
it's been about 1.5 months, and was installed in winter when dormant. it's greening up and doing well, but only in certain places. In some places it's very greened and fluffy and soft, but in others it's still looking half dormant and hard with gray dead "branches" all over that won't come up or go away.
I water it on a schedule every other day of 10 minutes, let set an hour, ten more minutes, set an hour, then 10 more minutes in the morning. in the evening I hit it with 2 five minutes intervals the same way. No standing water. By the time I get home from work it feels dry and crunchy except in the green areas.
Is this normal? Do I just keep waiting and letting the Spring and Summer do it's thing or is there something I need to be doing?
I've also noticed what despite keeping the sod moist as I can, the sod pieces are pulling away from each other and I'm seeing a lot of gaps so I'm wondering if light top dressing with sand and compost to fill those in now is beneficial?
Insight appreciated!
by thehoff9k
4 Comments
I’d suggest focusing on your soil now. Put down humic (I prefer Humichar) helps create great soil and retains water better. Then push it with a 16-4-8 fertilizer during the growing season.
https://thebermudabible.com/
Just hurry up and wait. Cutting sod is super stressful to the plant, plus it was in dormancy. Some is late coming out of dormancy until its good and warm. Bermuda wants it hot. Some will be dead, but not much. I’ve laid tons of Bermuda in the winter. Just let it do its thing. It will fill in over the summer. If it has large dead patches (it shouldn’t) then call the contractor and he can come plug some in. Bermuda is super forgiving it will run and fill in, if its still patchy in June then start asking questions. Let it get ramped up first.
Also yes, any bare spots that do appear if small either go get some more Celebration Bermuda and plug it. Nurseries will usually sell single pieces, cut it with a regular ass steak knife. Or if the area is small enough just add some top soil / sand mixture and that Bermuda will have that spot filled in less than 2 months in the summer.
I’ve had celebration for about 4 years now and it does this every year on the side of my house, the edges green up first and the middle lags behind it. My guess is because the edges see sunlight the longest due to how shadows are cast (north/south facing house) but I’ve never focused on it too much. Although celebration is more shade tolerant than other varieties it’s still bermuda and enjoys having the sun beat down on it all day.
The only other thing is that it does look like the closer to the walking path of the fence gate you get the more the bermuda is struggling. If that area sees a lot of people walking on it you might have a compaction issue that’s contributing to the slower greening in that area but I wouldn’t consider it the main cause. My side strip sees a lot of foot traffic not only from me and stuff like wheel barrows, gorilla carts, and dolly’s but also some kids like to use it as a shortcut to/from the bus stop so it’s plenty compacted and greens up 100% in mid-late April anyways.
If you want you can use a dethatching rake or a groundskeeper 2 rake to remove the dead grass and slightly speed things up, celebration does product more thatch than other varieties, but it’s not necessary.