Background info: I had my backyard redone feb-april of this year, and if was sodded with Bermuda. It appeared to be doing fine except for a few places where it gets too much shade. I had been mowing it with my riding lawn mower 36" non-floating deck and to avoid scalping I had to mow it between 3-4" tall. After doing some research online I decided to buy a new mower. I bought a used 20" Tru-cut reel mower, and got it tuned up at a local shop.

I started trying to reduce watering frequency, but over did it and caused two large patches to brown out/die. They grass turned dry and took on a silvery color in those patches right before i watered again. I tried to go 4-5 days without watering. So at least I learned first hand what grass that needs to be watered looks like. I pulled some of the dead grass up to make sure it wasn't grubs, it still has roots so i don't think it was grubs, just burned up.

So the Reel mower can only mow so high, and when I mowed a portion of my lawn it cut all the green off in many places. I used the grass catcher and also blew off any remaining cuttings when i finished.

My question is, is it too late in the season to be adjusting lawn height this much? Should I just wait until next spring and scalp and top dress then (yard is lumpy)? Some of the previous scalpings from the riding lawn mower are still visible, and it seems to take 3-4 weeks to recover.

I'm told here in Atlanta that the Bermuda will grow into September and keep it's color into October.

I have two dogs, some of the small dead circles are from dog pee, but not all off them.

Here are some pictures!

You can see the line in the yard where i stopped mowing with the reel mower..

You can also see evidence of previous scalping in the area of the lawn i did not cut with the reel mower yet, it is still 3"4" tall.
You can also see "dead patch" from lack of water in the middle are of the tall grass.

Dead patch and shaded area, working on trimming up the large jap maple.

another area i need to trim up the redtips

more previous scalping from rider

Closeup of newly scalped area by reel mower

Little further away

Closeup of reel mower cut quality

the circled area turned silvery gray from lack of water prior to turning brown. When i look closely in that area i don't see any green at all yet. I didn't mean to imply it was dead and never coming back, just that it shows no green at all currently.

There are a bunch of other smaller areas that have been impacted by either dog pee or poop, or something else.

Curious how I would determine dead vs. dormant, and curious how it would go dormant in the middle of summer, stress? Lack of XYZ?

When sod was laid nothing was added, no lime, no fertilizer, no pre-emergent no nothin. I hadn't researched it and was trusting landscaper to do it right, i was wrong to have trusted him. Following his instructions i waited 4 weeks for first mow, and finally decided to call a lawn service company to take care of chems and fertilzer and any disease/issue that crops up. They said they needed to wait further because it was still too new to do anything to, and they explained to me what should have been done, and how some of it would have to wait till next year (crabgrass etc.). They said i could put some starter fertilizer on it which i did, but they said that would also cause broad leaf weeds to grow. They came out for the 1st time a month ago, sprayed for broad leaf weeds, not sure if fertilizer was applied, and told me to water more.

I started looking into buying a smaller mower because of all the scalping that was occurring and the more i read the more i realized i need to do. This all lead to reel mower purchase and attempt to shorten grass mowing height but i see that i should just wait till next spring for that.