Bermuda is VERY hard to get rid of. I would fertilize and water well, and bet it will fill in. If you use chemicals there are weed killers that work in Bermuda without killing the grass.

Most of my lawn is St. Augustine from the neighbor's lawns that overtook the Bermuda, but a few year's ago had to have most of it scraped off to deal with trying to level things out, and when the grass started growing back in, it was the Bermuda.

I have a strip on the other side of my driveway that is all Bermuda. It doesn't get watered as much as it should, but when the fall rains start it comes back quickly. Tough stuff! Good luck!

Read the Bible it will tell you.

Tilling is not a good idea. Clay soil is really not as bad as you think. Weed b gone followed up with fert later in the week

Where do you live? Are there any brick factories nearby? Because there is darned little clay in Texas. There is a lot of red sand but it's red from the iron. Need to know where you live.

NEVER TILL IN PREPARATION FOR GRASS. In 3 years that fluffy tilled soil will settle unevenly leaving you with a very bumpy surface.

Do you have full sun? Because buffalo grass will be the first plant to die out in any shade.

There is one variety of buffalo grass that I really like: Tech Turf by the Turffalo company outside of Lubbock. It was developed at Texas Tech and Turffalo. It is not slow growing and not slow spreading. It can be mowed at any height from 1/2 inch to 4 inches. It needs little water but it does need some. Here are a few pictures.

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This one shows it mowed at 3/4 inch (just mowed).

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This is the same lawn. Look back at the first pic. See the brick mailbox at the other side of the lot? This picture shows how the Tech Turf has thinned out in the shade of the mailbox. It gets only afternoon sun on that west side of the box.

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This shows Tech Turf mowed at 3 inches - well if they mowed it it would be 3 inches. This picture was taken right after school ended for the summer at a frat house. They fertilized before they left but left it unmowed. You can see how dense it gets. You can also see how it is trying to spread across the concrete. This stuff loves to spread.

Tech Turf is more expensive to buy than hybrid bermuda sod, but bermuda requires much more fertilizer and care. The Tech Turf will never get any darker green than you see in these pictures. Hybrid bermuda gets much darker green, again, with all the fertilizer. All buffalo grass has the brown flowers and seed stalks. One of the huge advantages of Tech Turf over other buffalo varieties is that these seed and flower stalks grow at the same rate as the grass. Other varieties shoot these things up into the air making it look very shaggy a few days after you mow.

dchall, i live in North Texas in Wichita Falls. It's about 2 hrs northwest of DFW. Alot of clay here. The back yard gets full sun for about 6-8 hours a day. Thanks for the pictures of the buffalo grass. Interesting that little bit of shade makes such a difference.
I have looked at the turfalo before but they are pretty proud of it. I'm building a patio as well as landscaping the entire yard so I was also looking for an economical solution. Primarily the reason why i was going to just keep the bermuda and baby it back.

If you take care of bermuda the way it wants to be cared for, you will bypass the cost of Turffalo in the first year. That doesn't mean you have to fertilize the bermuda every month, or use an expensive reel mower, but it sure does better when you do. With Turffalo you can get away with much less care and a regular rotary mower.

Then if you have the Bermuda Bible, you can bring back the bermuda. Mow low, fertilize monthly, and water regularly. It will spread back. If you are worried about your hard soil, you can soften it with shampoo. Apply at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Follow that up with a 1-inch irrigation. Wait 2 weeks and reapply. That usually softens the soil to allow better water penetration. The soil should be soft when wet and get hard again as it dries out. By the next watering it should be very dry at the surface. Organic fertilizer (alfalfa pellets) helps with softening the soil but it does not work by itself.

I used to drive through Wichita Falls on my way to Pampa from San Antonio. Then I got a GPS and found a much shorter route up through Abilene. But I have pictures of the camel farm.

lol..yep know the camel farm well. and that is quite a haul from San Antone to Pampa, I would definitely find the shortest route.

Thanks for the advice. I've never heard of using shampoo. So i have a sprayer that I hook up to my hose will that work? or will it cause so much foam from the bubbles that i wont be able to get it to spread evenly? I have the Bermuda bible printed and I'm following it to the T this year. Curious as to what fertilizer you reccommend? Ive read in the bible about the complete fertilizer to apply first and then nitrogen only. I was curious though about Iron? Doesnt that green up lawns quickly with the help of a little water.