Well, you probably should have stopped by BEFORE you did all the work......

If you keep seeds watered, they will grow. The rate at which that happens will depend on the ground temps. You want to keep the soil moist but not wet. If you are making mud puddles, you are letting the sprinklers run too long in each spot.

As for the overall plan, it was probably a mistake to till. Now you have a bit of a lumpy mess and it is never going to settle level. Also, tilling does not kill many perennial weeds, so they may pop back up even before your grass gets going. You could have made things easier on yourself by killing off the weeds with roundup and then just clearing it down to the soil line.

I would get the fertilizer put down now. The grass won't actually need it until it starts growing, but once the seeds start germinating, you want to walk on it as little as possible for the first couple of weeks.

Before I found this forum, I did exactly the same thing you did. On the advice of a friend (who is an asst. supervisor of a golf course; even they don't always know) I Roundup everything, rototilled, and seeded. The seeds came in fine, but 2 years later, my lawn is pretty bumpy. Soon I will have to start a huge leveling project.

Other than what Bill recommended, I would say let the yard dry up a bit to where it's not muddy, get a big water-filled roller and roll the yard to get it as smooth as possible. Since you just started this not too long the seeds probably haven't germinated. I was able to roll part of my lawn when I seeded, and I have to say that part is smoother than the part that I didn't get to rolled. Once it settle, you might still have to do some topdressing to level, but it won't be as much. Good luck.

You pulled the trigger a little to quick this year. I am in DFW area and the soil and air temps are still too cool. If it warms up to the mid 80's to 90's within a week you will be OK. But if these abnormal cool temps prolong you will experience a long delay. If it takes another few weeks to warm up the seed could rot.

Down here in San Antonio it is not nearly warm enough for bermuda seed to germinate. We're still getting evening temps in the 60s with daily highs in the low 80s. Not even close to warm enough.

Tilling was the wrong thing to do. Since you had the tractor, the tool to use would have been a box blade. The box blade only works at the very surface to scrape off and level everything.

Raking the seed was a bad idea, too. That covered the seed and will keep it from getting direct sunlight (warmth). Don't cover it again.

If there is any good news, it is this. You seeded bermuda. Surely one seed will sprout fairly soon. That is all you need to have a bermuda lawn.

For anyone reading this who is planning to seed bermuda onto a large area, get a landscaper with a box blade to prepare the surface. Scatter the seed. Roll the seed down with a water fillable roller until you cannot see your foot prints behind the roller. Then water it 3x per day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), for 15 minutes each time, for 3 weeks. Mow when the grass is 1 inch high. After you have mowed for the second time, fertilize. Back off on the watering frequency but increase the time. Eventually you should be watering no more than once a week for as long as it takes to keep it alive all week. Keep it mowed to 1 inch for seeded bermuda. Bermuda can take all the high nitrogen fertilizer you can give it once a month.

Thanks for all of the expert advice guys, here is the big thing..i do have a box blade but tilled thinking it was a better idea..so from this point if it were you guys doing this..

Step 1: Get a water roller and flat smooth out the yard now?
Step 2: Use the box blade and smooth out the yard?
Step 3: Re-seed the yard again and apply the starter fertilizer? (guess i should wait another few weeks for warmer temps?)

I want to do this right the 1st time as we are ready to enjoy our huge backyard, it would be like christmas!

thanks alot guys..

10 day forecast in link, looks like 80-90's next week or so

Here is a link that might be useful: 10 Day Forecast

Since you have already tilled and if you are willing to seed again, I would work on leveling the lawn for a few weeks until it warms up. If your drainage is working (i.e. draining water away from all buildings and neighbor's buildings), then you can work on individual low spots. If you have high spots, first try to move them to the low spots to fill. Water heavily to settle the soil as much as you can. Let that dry some and roll it. If the soil is wet when you roll, it will push all the air out of the soil. Cattle do this at the edges of water ponds/tanks. Ranchers call it 'pugging the soil' and that is my definition of compaction - when there is no room for air in the soil. So let the soil dry out before rolling. Only add more soil if you don't have any high spots to move around. Your soil should be even with any concrete barriers you have (sidewalks, patios, etc). Add soil, roll, let dry, water, roll, and repeat until you are sick of it.

Did you use a PTO tiller on the back of a tractor? Or was it a hand held, monster rototiller that bucks all over the yard?

Thanks DC,
To answer your 1st question I did use a PTO rototiller which worked well, I kept it at same level over entire yard (about 6" deep). The only places it left chucks was along edges near fence because I couldnÂt get right up against fence...so those chunks are about size of your fist which I assumed would settle after rains and my dog making his rounds. (Worse case i would buy sod to use along the fence line)
As far as your comment about drainage, Last year I used a box blade and tried to level the yard for SOD. But things came up and I couldnÂt afford to buy it, so after a year of weather and such the yard was beginning to hold large ponds of water and it was starting to flood the front side of house as well...
After I tilled we got a good rain yesterday and to my joy the side of the house was dry! I had no standing water anywhere which was nice...So I assume with tilling and moving some high / low spots I may have corrected that problem. So from this point this is what I will do and please agree or disagree with my steps.
1. I will let the dirt dry so I can get the tractor back in the yard without rutting it up.
2. I will start leveling some more with the box blade and smooth out the dirt and do some more clean up (IE remove more of the smaller rocks and debris that I left because I was just too tired lol)
3. Then I will use a water roller and roll the yard to make it as smooth as possible.
4. Re- Seed the yard and roll yard once again.
5. Water and cross fingers.

Would you suggest that after I use the box blade (my step 2) apply Roundup over entire yard?
If so how long would you wait before seeding..
Thank you.

Okay good. You are in far better shape than if you had used a hand held rototiller. The tractor will hold a PTO rototiller at one depth for you without bucking. In that case then you can run the box blade to your heart's content.

The problem with hand held rototillers in prep for turf is that you absolutely cannot hold one of those things to one depth. They will hit a hard place and buck up and go over it. They will hit a soft spot and dig in and in and in. What happens is you have a lower pan of untilled soil that is not level. When you level the surface above, you have different depths of fluffy, tilled soil between the level surface and the uneven pan below. Once all that settles, it settles to the uneven contour of the bottom pan. If you are growing bermuda, you want it perfect to about 1/8 inch. After 3 years you may find you are off, so getting it perfect up front is not necessarily absolutely required. It can be fixed pretty easily with about 2 man-days of hard labor. The trick to make it easier is to get four men working on it.

Take this opportunity, then, to work out your drainage. If you don't have a sloped yard, or cannot see the swale that will be your drain, then you probably don't have adequate drainage. You should be able to see a swale that is 2 inches deeper than the surrounding surface. It doesn't have to be very deep...unless you are getting it inspected. You have time so fiddle around with the box blade.

With a tractor PTO tiller you should be OK. Only thing I read in your post was you worked the seed in. That may bite you. As you know Bermuda seed is very very small like a grain of sand, and should only be buried to a depth of the diameter of the seed. That means spread it out on top of the soil and roll it.

Here is what I would do if you are willing to re do it. Wait 3 weeks and see what happens. If you get good germination in 3 weeks, relax, it worked.

If not, use the box blade and regrade the area, seed, and roll.

Here'es the proper steps to planting a Bermuda lawn.
1) Kill everything with Roundup.
2) Till or disc the entire area.
3) Apply fertilizer while the soil is rough.
4) Drag the soil smooth with a box blade or some kind of smoothing device. (I use a home made drag constructed out of heavy channel iron)
5) Drag again with a piece of chain link fence.
6)Apply seed with a broadcast spreader set at a low rate and crisscross over and over for even dispersal.
7) Drag fence over the area. This buries the Bermuda seed to the recommended depth of 1/4th inch or less.
8) Water if there isn't enough rain and watch it grow.
9) It is warm enough now.

10. I just did 3 acres this way and I'm not far from Dallas.
11. The tilling and dragging creates a fairway smooth lawn.

Thanks guys for the advice and how-to's..i like the idea of waiting 3 weeks (need rest after bustin my arse last weekend)but also LOVE the sound of a fairway smooth lawn..i will take some pics today when i get hom of the yard after 5 days since i tilled and raked best i could. I want you guys to see the shape it is in.
I am thinking i may take a box blade to it this weekend and replant..but with me already seeding 5 days ago, will that cause issues?

I like the waiting idea, too.

rdaystrom, in your step 2 you suggest tilling. If you are going to blade and drag later, what benefit is tilling?

Patience Grasshopper. No need to spend any more money or energy right now. The DFW weather finally normalized yesterday with mid 80 temps. Give God and Mother Nature a chance to do their magic. In the meantime read the Bermuda Bible and gain knowledge. You can smooth the lumps and bumps out later for that fairway look.

If the seed fails, well waiting 3 weeks increases your chances of success. So be patient and see what happens.

haha yes sensei!
I have read it a few times already and getting familiar with it.
for grins here is a satelitte photo of my house, you can see the size of the yard.i am the one with a veiw of full house bottom left center.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:94559}}

The benefit of tiling or using a disc and dragging later is that it breaks up the soil to a depth of about 4 to six inches. I like to apply fertilizer at this point because it gets buried deeper and dispersed throughout the top 4 to six inches. The drag then then breaks up the soil clumps even further and spreads it into holes, ruts, depressions, and other causes of roughness. This creates a "fairway smooth" yard where you can drive a golf cart across it without the bumps flipping you drink out of the drink holder. After dragging the chain link fence piece is pulled across to smooth even further. The last trip with the fence piece also plants the seed to a very shallow depth on average.

I agree about the drag, but I disagree about tilling first...as explained above.

If you do not disc or till there is nothing to drag and level the ground. By the way box blades only work well if you already have a lot of loose soil to spread. They are worthless for leveling packed soil.
dchall_san_antonio, OK... I get it now. I should cross your name off of the "tillers for Christmas" list.

If you do not disc or till there is nothing to drag and level the ground. By the way box blades only work well if you already have a lot of loose soil to spread. They are worthless for leveling packed soil.

Not true if you use a blade with scafiers

Scarifiers on a box blade are less than great but better than nothing. You think tilling leaves a rough surface just use those things. For those of you who may not know what a scarifier is check out the link to Land Pride box blades. I prefer to use a tiller or a disc. Either way it is work. I get pretty good results using the methods I described above.

Here is a link that might be useful: Land Pride

Well guys, as of this morning i still do not see any grass trying to grow. Nor do i see any surface seeds. I know one thing i have had to chase birds away all last week so i am afraid they may have eatin most of my seeds.

We had rain over the weekend and cooler temps so maybe i still need to wait? Thought about using box blade this weekend and maybe sodding a portion of the yard and seeding the rest. I really want a back yard this summer just cant afford to sod it all.

I live in Oklahoma city and put burmuda seed down the first week of April. A lot of peoples said it was too soon but it took about four weeks and i started seeing grass. My soil is a sandy soil. I used
10-20-10 fertilizer when i planted the seed and six weeks later after i had some grass growing. I was told that burmuda is like a weed and once it starts growing it will take over and so far it has. I wouldn't go through all the trouble with getting your yard smooth because u have nothing to hold the dirt in place and u will get runoff areas. Also i when i fertilized at the six weeks i put more grass seed down. Just have patience and it may take a little longer than everyone else.

Guess I got lucky. I planted Bermuda seed last weekend and had visible growth in 7 days! But I live in central Florida and we have had high temps in the mid 90s.

Hope yours grows in soon.

Well guys, as of this morning i still do not see any grass trying to grow

Did not you say you turned or buried the seed deeply? If so do not hold your breath waiting to see it emerge, or at least very much of it. For Bermuda you just loosen up the surface soil, sow the seed, then roll it and you are done.

"Well guys, as of this morning i still do not see any grass trying to grow"

Hey Weed, that comment was from a year ago...May 10, 2010

I live in West Texas and had a above ground pool in my back yard for years. I took it down and I am trying to grow bermuda grass from seed. I put down three yards of top soil. I also use a water well to water the grass which contains sulfur. The grass will not grow. I already have bermuda grass in the rest of the yard and it is fine. I am thinking that maybe I should not use the well water until the grass is estabished. Please advise.

vdeishler, welcome to the forum.

Where do you live? West Texas is almost as big as Texas. If you are in Pecos then I would have one answer. If you are in Mule Shoe, I would have a different one.

When did you plant the seed and how did you do it?

How often are you watering the seed and for how long?