More pics

more pics

Looks dry. Take pocket knife and cut out a small square out of the brown area and cut a square out of a green area and compare the two. Make sure all irrigation heads are turning properly.

Agree. Put come straight sided cans in the yard and turn on the sprinklers. Check how much water you've accumulated after your normal watering cycle. Can you stick a screwdriver into the ground where it is brown? Compare how easy it is there versus the greener places in the yard and write back with your findings.

If the problem were due to tree chips or sawdust in the soil, I would expect good grass but yellow in color compared to the rest of the lawn. This is way beyond yellow.

That dry spot looks just like the one i had on my yard. Did you get the stumps pulled out or grounded down? i had my stump grounded down but i still had dry spots issues. i just hand water those spots once they need watering. Those particular spots have only 2 to 3 inches of top soil since there is still a good amount of the tree stump in there. One day i will grind it down more.

Yup. It dried out. You'll have to look deeper to find out why. My issue is the large rocks right underneath the grass. Very annoying. It needs 6-8 inches of non-compacted topsoil minimum to be able to go a week between 1 inch of watering.

Thx all for info above. I did the screw driver test and the two areas were harder than the rest of the lawn. I did a treatment of baby shampoo in hopes of softening the areas, time will tell. I do need to clarify that I do not have an irrigation system, I allow Mother Nature to handle the watering. I do typically setup my articulating tripod sprinklers after I cut the lawn once a week to make sure it gets some water if we have not received rain.

As I said before I cut at 1", should I consider raising the cutting height now that we are in the heat of summer? I thought this hybrid Tif could handle the hot weather without constant irrigation. I know the rule of thumb is 1" of h2o per week. Would raising the cutting height to 1.5" help the browning color, will it hurt the performance of my sod? I cut with a rotary Toro Timemaster 30 which is a 9 HP twin blade mower, I keep the blades very sharp and my yard is very level due to top dressing/ leveling I have done. I kept the grass cut at 2" last year because it was new sod and I didn't want to risk burning it up. I love the way it looks cut at 1", it's very thick and manicured looking, drives my neighbors nuts.

Thoughts?

This was last year at 2"

Any thoughts guys?

Anything above 1" will just look thinner. I'd keep it at 1". Since you were cutting at 2" last year, can you tell if it is now thicker at 1"? When you do water make sure you are watering up to 1 inch in this heat. Bermuda is very drought tolerant but to keep it deep green and looking lush and healthy, it will require at least one inch per week. The dry spots, i would even use some soaker hoses to get deep watering. I have been watering every 10 days or so, I usually go by when the grass starts wilting.

This looks like a watering issue.

Drought tolerant means it will not die if you stop watering it. St Augustine is considered a water hog simply because it dies when you don't water it. But ANY grass MUST have regular water to look great. When you think of it like that, St Aug is no ore a water hog than anything else. If you don't care whether it thins out or dies, then you can stop watering. But the idea that any certain grass needs less water to look good is very misleading.

Since you have a rectangular yard, you're going to be a lot (LOT) happier with an oscillating sprinkler. I have tried every sprinkler there is (except the traveling sprinkler) since the 1950s. I have watched my neighbor's traveler fall over or otherwise get stuck and decided not to try one. But I have tried them all, twice. About 5 years ago I realized the only one that provides consistently even coverage was the oscillator. The huge problem with those was the mechanical linkage would get stuck at low water pressure. Enter the "turbo" mechanism. I don't know what that is, but it solved the problem with oscillators. Now I have seven of them (two houses and a big yard). The beauty of oscillators is they apply a perfectly consistent stream of water in an almost perfectly rectangular shape, at a very low rate. This allows the water to sink into the soil between passes while the sprinkler waters the other side of the sweep. These new turbos are very precise in their adjustment and crisp in changing directions.

The problem with sprinklers that throw water is they overshoot areas. They have "adjustments" which allow you to foul up the spray and slobber over the overshoot area, but generally they are a hassle to fine tune.

The problem with sprinklers which shatter the stream of water with rotating blades is that they only work in small, circular areas. My yard has corners which always went dry with those things.

The problem with sprinklers with tiny holes is that the holes can clog with contamination from your watering system. Even oscillators have this issue. Some of them come with a clean out tool to push the obstruction back through the nozzle where it can be flushed out the side. I've never had to do that with the new ones.

What does the Bermuda Bible say about mowing height this time of year? TW just updated the BB last week so you might want to get the updated version. Google it. The first hit should be the updated one.

Thx to all for replies. We were blessed with 4" of rain in the last 3 days which has worked miracles for my lawn. I had applied my monthly nitrogen application two days before the deluge of rain we received and now my lawn looks like Augusta, bright green. I will continue to cut at 1" and do a better job of watering when we don't get the necessary rain.

Amazing what a lot rain can do.

Tifsport is one of those grasses which can be mowed to 1/2 inch. But then it looks shaggy after 2-3 days and you have to mow again, so it depends on what you're after.

Dellonb your grass makes me jealous. For you to be able to cut that low and not scalp with a rotary is amazing. I had been debating on getting a push reel mower next year so I could cut lower. You just convinced me.

Glad your brown spots cleared up. The Bermuda bible talks about the walk test and leaves curling up as ways to know your grass needs water. I have found my grass will have a severe color change similar to yours when it needs water.

This post was edited by Sherm1082 on Tue, Jul 15, 14 at 10:48

Dchall- thx for input, I'm after a lawn that looks like a golf course. I love cutting the grass, it's a stress reliever from my everyday job.

Sherm - I couldn't bring myself to spend 5K on a Toro reel mower, believe me I considered it. I did try a fiskars manual rotary, that lasted for one day. My sod was way to thick for a manual mower. I love my toro timemaster 30" rotary, the only down fall is not being able to cut lower than 7/8". Even at 7/8" this sod looks amazing.

My project next year is an irrigation system.

I won't be shelling out 5k. I'll be shelling out a fraction of that on a manual mower. From what I've read, Fiskars isn't a good mower for Bermuda so I am looking for something different.

Anyways, I don't want to jack your thread. I'm glad your yard is doing better and it does look amazing. Keep it up.

dellonb... That lawn is amazing! I couldn't even imagine a lawn like that out here in So Cal. I'd pay a lot of money for a law like that, and I may just have to! Did I miss the part where you said what kind do grass it is?

Mike

SoCalDawg, Tifsport is a hybrid bermuda used for sports complexes like golf courses and professional sports stadiums. It is more expensive than the Tif 419 variety of the hybrid. Tif 419 has become the standard contractor grade sod all across the south. Due to high production and demand, the cost is about half the cost of other sodded lawn grasses.

Tifsport is normally mowed at about 1/2-inch high. Homeowners seldom use it so we don't see many posts about it. The lower you mow it the more often you need to mow it. If you are making money on your grass, like a golf course, you can afford to use Tifsport. Otherwise people tend to let it get up taller. Hybrid bermuda is a high maintenance turf. It gets to be more maintenance when you get into the more exotic hybrids.

dchall...
When you say "high maintenance" do you mean work or money?
I wouldn't mind the time, but if it's going to cost me more (i.e. Watering) than I need to weigh the cost, I suppose. Especially with the drought we're having and the crack down $500 fines. Although, it's ironic that our HOA wants wants to fine us for not keeping our lawns green!
Does Tifsport come in seed? I've never seen it at any of the big box stores, have I? And would I have to kill everything off and start over or can I over seed with it?

Tifsport is a hybrid sod; no seed is available. Being bermuda it can go dormant in the summer if you are not allowed to water. It will come back when it rains or when you can water again. Any lawn will need an inch of water per week to look nice. For you I have to caveat that statement because at your location, (slight) altitude, and sea breeze, you won't see many days in the 90s. You can get by with watering most grasses every other week.

Search this forum (bottom search form) for sprigging or stolonizing. A few months ago a guy from Australia posted about his experience sprigging hybrid bermuda instead of sodding it. It would be a much (MUCH) less expensive way to get one of the more exotic bermuda hybrids. It has other advantages, too. Find and read the topic. Basically you would buy a few small pieces of sod, wash off the soil, chop up the remaining grass and stolons, scatter them on the prepared soil, and cover with a light dusting of sand.

Or you could get much the same effect with a lot less hassle by just using Tif 419 off the pallets. It's $50 per pallet almost everywhere. The 419 needs much less care because it can be mowed at 1 inch high rather than 1/2 inch high. You can use a $300 mower instead of a $3,000 mower.

Thanks! I'll start looking for it and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again for all the help

SoCal - thx for the praise, it's nice to hear my hard work has paid off. I knew nothing about Bermuda grasses or maintaining them until I decided to undertake this project last year. I killed off my fescue lawn because I was tired of the amount of water it required and how poorly it looked in the hot summer months. I decided to sod Bermuda but was unsure of which type. My neighbor had St. Augustine and another Zoisya, so I did some research and learned that TifSport was a very robust lawn that would withstand kids, crowd out weeds and allow me to mow super low to achieve the golf course looking I was striving for. From a cost standpoint, it was slightly more expensive than a standard 419, but not by much due to the numerous sod farms in my area. From a maintenance standpoint TifSport is no different than 419, I choose to cut it low (1"), which requires me to cut it every 3-4 days. It can be maintained at higher heights which allows it to be cut less frequent. I maintained mine at 2" last year because it was new sod and I didn't want to risk burning it up. In my opinion, hybrid Bermudas are meant to be maintained at low cutting heights. Bottom line, if I had it to do all over again I would purchase TifSport again, absolutely love it!

Agree with all. Nice lawn. To improve the uniformity of water penetration, you might also investigate the professional granular water penetrants. Very easy to apply.....broadcast application just as granular fert. There are a great many products out there and most are good, some better. Check out Naiad and Numerator just for some info. Many are also available for performance over various periods of time....one month, two months, three, etc. I use a 3 month product and apply twice a year......April and July. Been doing it for three years. As for Bermuda and water........once established Bermuda is very deep rooted and a low water user. That being said, the key is finding that schedule that will provide you the quality of turf you want and a water budget you can live with. The books tell you to water deeply to encourage deeper rooting and the recommendation is correct. The problem is keeping the 'deep irrigation' on the turf and not running down the street; especially an issue on heavier clay soils. Again the penetrants can help here. Read up on them and see what the local professional turf outlets might have.
Good luck! PG78