Lawns Tips by Anthony - How to Keep Your Lawn Green & Weed Free

Anthony lives in our neighborhood and has some of the BEST looking grass and yards. He's agreed to help provide some of his personal tips + tricks to those who would like a little more information on how to keep your yard looking it's best all year.

In Riverside, we all generally have Hybrid Bermuda as the grass in our yards.

Unfortunately, there is no seed to grow it. It's a very fine blade of dense grass.

Do not go to big box stores and buy "Bermuda Seed". This is Common Bermuda. Common Bermuda is a cheap seed and has a more thick blade. It will not match your current lawn making it seem you have weeds. You'll end up having a color and texture difference.

Bermuda is an aggressive species that will spread horizontally through Rhizomes underground. They are called "runners". If you need to fill in bare areas you can simply find these runners along the pathways and garden beds. You can transplant them to the bare areas of your lawn and they will take root and fill in the bare space.

Bermuda hates shade. It needs at least 8 hrs of sun daily. If you have trees casting shade in your yard..trim them very high. This is called lifting the canopy.

Bermuda likes to be cut short. It needs to be cut between 3/4" and 1.5". Which will promote more thickening. The longer it gets the more brown scalping you'll have. Long lengths also promote more fungus and insect issues. Bermuda stalks are 30% green and 70% brown so cutting taller Bermuda leads to scarring and an unsightly lawn. The general rule of thumb is to cut no more than 1/3 of the grass blade height, so if you do, you may end up browning it too.

Soil testing is important and not hard to do. Everyone should do a soil test at least once a year. If possible, the best time to test is before Spring so you'll know what nutrients the soil is lacking and can be proactive in getting it fixed.

Proven best fertilizers are of a 16-4-8 ratio of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. A great fertilizer is PGF Complete by Anderson's which can be found on Amazon.

Another helpful tip and it's safe to say, is also one of the most important things which can be done is to apply a pre-emergent in late fall for Winter weeds and especially apply in early Spring (late March) for Summer weeds. This will dramatically limit the use of negative herbicide treatments and sprays you'll need during the year.

Early Spring it is recommended to do a scalping. Drop the blade on a rotary as low as you can. If you have a reel mower you can drop it to the dirt. If you want your green Bermuda to be 1.5"..scalp your dead lawn to 3/4". This is a huge project because all the clippings have to be picked up. It may be worth hiring a crew to do it.

Watering should be done deeply rather than lots of short waterings. Bermuda needs 1 inch of water a week. So pick one day a week to water off and on until you get the required amount. This will promote deep root growth as they will dig deeper without a daily supply of water.

Thank you for reading and if you want any additional information you can find Anthony in our FB Group.