Don't fertilize until you have mowed it for the second time. Then you can be assured that you have roots taking up water and nutrients. To fertilize earlier would be a waste of fertilizer.

Thanks for doing your research!

Fertilize it as David suggest. Sooner is better than later.

Yeah I caught that right off the bat. If I knew how to report it I would. I have been on here for about 6 or 7 years now, and I am a Sod Farmer (well retired) with a retail outlet myself, and there is not one person here that can tell you who I am or where my farm is or the name of it.

Well there might be a couple who have contacted me privately off-line who know, but to my knowledge have not let the cat out of the bag.

I am not there to make a buck, I have made plenty. I am here to give something back.

I think we have discussed this before. Personally I have not grown either TG or Celebration, but i have a lot of professional trade publications that go very in depth about both.

Shade tolerance is about equal between the two. As you know TG does not live up to the claims by promoters, its still fricking Bermuda.

Also as you noticed neither TG or Celebration is NOT going to look as good as Tifway-I or Tifway-II (aka 419).

As an alternative you might try something like Diamond or Emerald Zoysia as they do have some moderate shade tolerance and are similar to Bermuda in appearance. Still will not match Tifway. Only grass that looks better than Tifway is going to be TifSport, TifEagle, Baby, or one of th eother semi-dwarf or dwarf varieties.

FWIW TifSport has about as good shade tolerance as TG and Celebrations. Might be worth trying as it cost the same as Tifway. TifSport is now becoming the preferred Default. It is almost a golf putting green quality. It has excellent cold tolerance and improved more than Tifway. Think about it.

Find a sod farm or two who sells varieties you are interested in. Go to the farm and find the manager or owner and lay this story on them.

Tell them you have an existing yard full of 15 year old U3 Bermuda that has seen its better days and want to replace it, but not sure which variety of Bermuda you want and want to take a few samples to take home and plug down and see how they do. When you decide you will come back and buy 20 pallets worth to replace your U-3

Sod farms always have scrap pieces around. Get you about a square foot of each they have to offer and go home and plant them and see how they do. Even if they charge you a few bucks will not hurt anything.

About 3 weeks ago I found a sod farm near Brookshire, Texas that uses sand based sod. I have clay based at home. I bought a pallet of celebration to test to see if the grass would smooth out better this way in the long run and it did.

Even new tifway sod will look good for the first season, and it sucks in the shade. The second and third season will tell the tale.

I'm going to try TifSport this time around.

grass hole is right. It will take all summer to really see how the TG will perform. I used to replace my somewhat shady areas with 419 every year (it's so cheep here). For thie first couple of months it would look great, then slowly decline. The TG I laid last year seems to be following the same path. Now that both homes on each side of me have been foreclosed upon, I will clear away a little more shade/canopy. Every little bit helps...

I can tell you that my TifGrand sod looks great. I have heard some negative things about it but it is success in my yard. I actually laid down 1 of 2 additional pallets for my back yard as I transition from tall fescue (quite a task by the way).

The question is if Tif 419 would look just as good. That I can't say. The only way to know for sure is to lay it down next to my TifGrand.

I do have an area on the southern side of my house that gets full sun. It would be ideal for 419 or another variety. I'm not sure how the 419 or say TifSport would look once it spread into my TifGrand area.

I can post some pics if people are curious.