Hey ya'll,

I am new to this site but a fan of lawn care. To start off let me say we built a house last year. I have always been pretty good at lawn maintenance but this has me stumped.

At my old house when we moved in the front lawn was perfect except for a few areas of weeds and a couple bare spots in the front. The back lawn was trashed. Apparently the owner before had dogs like we do so they just never put the time into it. I continued the trend and just let the back go with nothing more than a spray weed killer and mowing. The front I fertilized, watered, and overseeded regularly and by the next summer there were no weeds, no bare spots, and a lush green bermuda lawn.

Move ahead a couple years and my wife and I decided to build a new house. We found a builder that actually goes to church with us and built in a neighborhood that is a little different. No one builder has built here so there are 30 year old houses all the way to new houses which is nice to keep the cookie cutter look to a minimal. We have a large lot, a lot bigger than our old lot, that is probably around a 1/2 acre. Sorry for the long intro but I hate hearing stories with no reference.

To get to the problem when we built since our lot was so much bigger than the rest the builder presented us with some options.

Option 1 Sod the whole lot for an upgrade charge (should have)

Option 2 Sod the normal size area he normally does and grade and seed the rest. (still a slight upcharge)

Option 3 Sod the normal size area and grade and seed the back yard, and just let the side yard go and let me handle it for no charge.

I chose option three to save money and give me a project to work on. I really wish I would have paid him for option 1.

Anyway I will split my yard into three parts... The front/dog run, back yard, and side yard. Each are is really unique and now I want them uniform.

The front/dog run were sodded. I wanted sod for the dog run so I wouldn't have to worry about the dogs messing with the seeds and to make the front look nice from the beginning.

The back yard was seeded with bermuda seed.

The side yard was left alone.

Now to really begin. The sodded front/dog run and seeded back even though they are both bermuda don't match. The back and front look differently, cut differently, and grow differently. The seed bag said bermuda, I read it. The front is definately bermuda because it is what I have grown up with. However the back is thinner blades, grows taller, grows faster, and mows like (insert four letter word). I found the same bag at Lowes today and read and it says Pennington SAHARA BERMUDA. At my old house I seeded with Scott's brand bermuda and I never noticed it not matching. I don't know what kind of bermuda the sod company laid but is there a difference between bermuda?

Now my side yard is a different story. It has some bermuda in it but it is ran over with weeds. I have already applied Scotts fertilizer with weed killer and it killed all of the broadleaf weeds or at least sent them on their way to dying. I have a lot of grassy weeds that I don't know how to kill. The only grassy weeds I can positively identify is what my grandpa always called wild onion. He said you can eat them and they smell just like cutting onions when mowing. There is also some crab grass and other stuff that looked like a prairie grass, and probably some other species of grasses. Tomorrow I was going to spray the whole area with Weed B Gone and see what happens. If that doesn't work my next option is to kill it with round up and plant new seed.

Any help here will be appreciated. I know this is a lot of info but if you have questions just ask I will be checking back.

Basically I want to seed the back more to get the correct bermuda but don't know what the front is. I also want to correct the side yard by removing weeds, and seeding to build a nice full lawn. I know I need to wait a month after Weed B Gone to seed so right now I am just sitting for a month waiting for some help. Thanks everybody.