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Establishing Bermudagrass over existing Centipede

Posted on 4/22/21 at 4:10 pm
Posted by good_2_geaux
Member since Feb 2015
740 posts
Posted on 4/22/21 at 4:10 pm
Going on year two at this home and have researched/followed best management practices. Im done with centepide.

My shady back yard looks great. The St. Augustine is 10x's healthier/fuller then it was when we first moved in.
The front centepede lawn - terrible. I definatly have a small drainage problem which I am correcting but Im ready to move on.

Would it be possible to pull off scalp cut, detaching/aerating, top dressing with bulk top soil and then broadcasting Bermuda seed? Sod would be too expesnive. I like what Ive read about the Pyramid 2 variety. Seed appears to be availabe locally around the Baton Rouge area.

Thoughts? TIA
Posted by ronk
Member since Jan 2015
6211 posts
Posted on 4/22/21 at 6:23 pm to
I mean you can. It won't be easy or quick and possibly might end up being just as expensive as sodding. By the time you rent the aerator, buy all of that top soil, and buy seed and then buy more seed and then possibly more seed next year you could have just bought 3 pallets of sod. All of the seed is not going to take and it will be splotchy. So you'll either have to wait it out or seed again.

The centipede isn't going to die out easy. You'll have to continue with a 3/4 inch cut, fert the lawn heavy, and possibly buy a herbicide that will kill centipede and not bermuda (Revolver or Finale or several others).
Posted by Bayou
CenLA
Member since Feb 2005
36835 posts
Posted on 4/22/21 at 8:33 pm to
I have 17 pallets of centipede on order right now.
You're making me think it's a mistake.
Posted by tilco
Spanish Fort, AL
Member since Nov 2013
13483 posts
Posted on 4/22/21 at 9:29 pm to
quote:

I have 17 pallets of centipede on order right now.
You're making me think it's a mistake.


Centipede is great if you have good sunlight (does ok with part shade)and no dogs (they will frick your grass up) and aren’t near water (torpedo grass).
Posted by White Bear
Yonnygo
Member since Jul 2014
13905 posts
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:02 pm to
quote:

centipede
it’s ok but I prefer st. Aug. one good thing about centipede is chinch bugs don’t seem to bother it. They will kill the hell out of st aug though.
Posted by TigerTatorTots
The Safeshore
Member since Jul 2009
80781 posts
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:33 pm to
Yea I got brand new sod a couple years ago and there are a dozen or so spots that get mild shade and it has killed off most of the grass in those spots
Posted by HighlyFavoredTiger
TexLaArk
Member since Jun 2018
879 posts
Posted on 4/22/21 at 11:29 pm to
The home we have now has centipede, previous owner had it sodded, it’s 8 years old now, first time I’ve ever dealt with it and Lord willing, it will be the last.
My 5 previous lawns have all been St. Augustine or Burmuda, I’ve never had a lawn grass that was as finicky and had to be babied like this centipede, which is a lot of babying when there’s 2 acres of it.

It has to be cut just the right height, if you cut too low, it’s bad, if you cut too high, it’s bad, it doesn’t tolerate mower wheel traffic even with normal mowing, you can see discoloration in the grass on every tire path. The soil has to be almost perfect pH, almost perfect water retention, almost perfect leveling and almost perfect soil content or the grass will die In spots, get Brown patch, get Large patch, get Take All Patch, get sod worms (webworms), if you water too much, it’ll do all that again, if you don’t water enough, it’ll do some of that stuff again. If you fertilize a little too much, it’s bad, if you don’t fertilize enough, it’s bad. If a spot dies, it takes months for the grass to fill back in even a 1 ft by 1ft area.
I have spent more time, money, work and worry on this 2 acres of centipede over the last 2 years than I have in all my lawns combined over the previous 30 years, it’s just too much of a hassle to maintain and if we knew we weren’t gonna get transferred, I’d pay ALOT of money to have it all cleared off and sod with something else, anything else except centipede.
This post was edited on 4/22/21 at 11:56 pm
Posted by good_2_geaux
Member since Feb 2015
740 posts
Posted on 4/23/21 at 4:36 pm to
I’d rent a rotary till lawn tractor and start over but with the crazy rains we get here, I worry it erodes the seed and fresh tilled soil.
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