Posted: 8/1/2012 12:32:50 PM EDT
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We are in a new house and the homeowner let the backyard go. Its a mix of fescue, weeds, moss, and bermuda. Lawn care guy didn't know what to do other than roundup and resod/reseed to get good results.
Any ideas? Its fairly shaded and has sprinklers. 
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| Do not install Bermuda sod or seed. You have too much shade and it will not grow. Hire a company to spray the whole yard with Trimec or another broadleaf killer, don't use round up just yet. After all the weeds die off, you'll see which grass is the dominant type in the yard. |
| The fescue with grow into the weeds, but you have to deny the weeds from coming back. Luckily for you, the winter is coming. You could go ahead and put down some turf builder with weed killer while its hot, but I would wait until about september because if its too hot the weed killer will burn the grass. You probably have too many weeds for any spray weed b gone, which would make you go broke. Just keep it cut short for now. The fescue will stay green all winter, the summer weeds will die, but in about late october the winter weeds will start coming, so you have to put down preventer to stop it. Then, come late winter early spring, put down crabgrass preventer and more turf builder. You'll have to work to get the yard how you want it, but by next summer you should be good to go. |
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Too much shade for bermuda.... If it were my yard, I would spray a broad leaf weed killer, then round up to kill what hasn't died that isn't fescue. Once the temperature drops below an average of 85, aerate the yard, then overseed with fescue. Follow up with pre-emergents in the spring. |
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Somebody told me a new variety, tifgrand Bermuda, does well in shade. Not sure if this is true or not. It does better than regular tiff 419, but still no where as good as fescue. I have all tiff419 but I also have full sun with no shade. Here's a pic of my yard. When I moved here three years ago the yard was full of weeds. It took a lot of work but now it looks good. The back yard was mostly rescue, but I've since killed it all off and have been promoting the growth of the bermuda. I've found that trimec is a great weed killer and barricade is a great pre-emergent. 
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I just installed 6 pallets of tifgrand in my backyard I'll let you know how it does in the shade Rob, text me if you need my lawn guys info Keep us updated. I have a small backyard with fescue. It is about 40-50% shade but we plan on pruning some trees this fall. I had a major failure of my irrigation system in the backyard for about 3 weeks in early July so I lost a majority of my fescue. I'm thinking jamur zoysia or tifgrand next year. I could always reseed the fescue this fall but I hate fescue. My bermuda in the front yard is looking really good. I moved into my house in April and Jace recommended arbor-nomics to treat the lawn. They got it in shape quickly. |
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Just to point out a slightly different perspective; my grass had gotten pretty bad from my neglect, to the point that I had as many weeds as grass... maybe more. I looked into various solutions, and determined a years pro treatment would cost almost the same as a DIY resod. So I tilled up the yard and laid out tarps and plastic to kill everything real well over a period of about 2 weeks. Then I enlisted my nephew and his pickup truck and we went over and picked up a couple pallets of sod. It took us about a day, and I had to water almost every day for about a week, and then taper it off slowly.
By the beginning of the next summer, my grass looked far better than it ever did with pro treatments, and the results were far faster as the estimate was that it would take two years to get the lawn back 100%. It took me a couple weekends, and it looked great immediately, and simply got better over time. With our warm winters, a good pre-emergent is a great help, but my lawn was so perfect, I could simply go walk around and pull up any weeds I saw. There were that few, and as the summer went on, the grass (bermuda) pretty much chokes the weeds out. You just have to keep winter weeds and early spring weeds under control before the grass gets going real good. I was also hesitant to use a lot of chemicals as lawn chemicals are a major contributor to ground water pollution, and we have a nice creek in the backyard, along with all kinds of wildlife. If it wasn't necessary, I wasn't just going to dump a bunch of herbicide and fertilizer on my lawn. YMMV, of course. And I think fescue would work a lot better for your yard because of all the shade, and that changes all the rules. Fescue grows and stays green year 'round, but it doesn't choke out the weeds as well. I would think that staying on top of the weeds would pretty much require spraying. Good luck. Az |
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I would wait till September, and cooler temps then kill it all and areate and seed with a turf type fescue. Don't buy the cheap K31 that is full of weeds. By the way MSMA kills fescue. What ever you do DO NOT put a pre-emergent on it until next spring, doing so now will hinder new seed growth this fall.
Ex Chem-Lawn employee here. Scott www.centerfiretraining.com |
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I have given up on the back yard, and have left it be mud, weeds, and patches of bermuda. The front looks nice though.
I have a hige hill behind the house, and when it rains, water comes, washes mud down, and jacks up the yard. One day, I will rent a backhoe, and make a drainage ditch, then resod. But for now, I give up :) |
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I have given up on the back yard, and have left it be mud, weeds, and patches of bermuda. The front looks nice though. I have a hige hill behind the house, and when it rains, water comes, washes mud down, and jacks up the yard. One day, I will rent a backhoe, and make a drainage ditch, then resod. But for now, I give up :) use some river rock / stone in the ditch and turn it in to a dry creekbed. my rents did that and it looks amazing... functional too. My dad and I went out in a tropical storm bout 5-7 years ago (we have underground springs and then the normal rainfall from the storm created a "river"), and used shovels and spades and followed the natural course of the runoff. that became the creek bed. |
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You guys are amateurs, I'm a pro at growing weeds. Look at my backyard http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/jeffco55/31935c66.jpg http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/jeffco55/5b45bb91.jpg Very suspicious looking greenery, sir. :P |
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You guys are amateurs, I'm a pro at growing weeds. Look at my backyard http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/jeffco55/31935c66.jpg http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/jeffco55/5b45bb91.jpg Very suspicious looking greenery, sir. :P Send someone on over to cut it all down and burn it for me then 
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You guys are amateurs, I'm a pro at growing weeds. Look at my backyard http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/jeffco55/31935c66.jpg http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/jeffco55/5b45bb91.jpg Very suspicious looking greenery, sir. :P Send someone on over to cut it all down and burn it for me then Reminds me of a joke: An old man lived alone in Minnesota. He wanted to spade his potato garden,but it was very hard work.His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation:
Dear Son, I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I hate to miss doing the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over.I know you would dig the plot for me, if you weren't in prison. Love, Dad Shortly, the old man received this telegram: For Heaven's sake, Dad,don't dig up the garden!! That's where I buried the GUNS!! At 4a.m the next morning, a dozen police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns. Confused,the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened, and asked him what to do next. His son's reply was: "Go ahead and plant your potatoes, Dad.. It's the best I could do for you from here." |
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You guys are amateurs, I'm a pro at growing weeds. Look at my backyard http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/jeffco55/31935c66.jpg http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/jeffco55/5b45bb91.jpg Very suspicious looking greenery, sir. :P Send someone on over to cut it all down and burn it for me then Reminds me of a joke: An old man lived alone in Minnesota. He wanted to spade his potato garden,but it was very hard work.His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation:
Dear Son, I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I hate to miss doing the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over.I know you would dig the plot for me, if you weren't in prison. Love, Dad Shortly, the old man received this telegram: For Heaven's sake, Dad,don't dig up the garden!! That's where I buried the GUNS!! At 4a.m the next morning, a dozen police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns. Confused,the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened, and asked him what to do next. His son's reply was: "Go ahead and plant your potatoes, Dad.. It's the best I could do for you from here." one of my favorites |
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Any particular brand of trimec you use? I used to use trimec plus with msma, but you can't use msma on a residential lawn anymore which sucks because it worked awesome. I now alternate between these two: http://www.pbigordon.com/images/products/TrimecSouthern-2.5GL-PS.png http://www.pbigordon.com/images/products/TrimecClassic-2.5GL-PS.png Trimec southern at southern states works well for me |