Slowly replacing St Augustine with Bermuda, would like recommendations for drought tolerant and heat tolerant varieties. Considering Common or Saraha as an over seed for the fall- when it rains.

Any other thoughts for a Central Texas lawn?

scd88 said:

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Tif Tuf. I put it down in my backyard. Does well in this summer heat and sun. I water twice a week.

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I agree, but it's sod only. He is asking about seed.

https://hancockseed.com/collections/bermuda-grass-seed

Ah, my bad as I missed that. Thanks for clarifying.

Any grass farm owners or managers on the OB? A relative is considering planting grass and looking for info on the new St Augustine variety that can be treated with roundup to kill undesired grasses and weeds.

Op the best time of the year to overseed will be in October.

The two sod farms near College Station have the Celebration Bermuda strain of sod, I know you want seed but just a few squares will quickly spread. This strain performs well even in the shade. The trick is to mow it from 1/2 inch up to an inch. It quickly chokes out weeds, Dallas grass, St. Augustine, but Crab grass will try to grow over it if you do not mow it often and low. It is my go to Bermuda sod for athletic fields, yards, heavy traffic areas. It is a darker green with almost a hint of blue. The University of Florida has a lot of information on this strain in their turf management section or you can just Google it. It grows over clay, sand, rocks, very hardy and spreads quickly. But if you top dress it with sand each year, it can look like a golf fairway, but you will have to fertilize it more. Good luck from the Science teacher/Coach who uses it in his own yard and ballfields.

Put down several pallets of pro vista St. Augustine the new variety developed by Scott's that is suppose to be the new gold standard. I put this down last year and it started out great. However, it is going down hill fast I would not recommend this variety as it does not do well in the heat. In my opinion I wasted about $2500. Wish now I had went with Tif Turf. Dont make my mistake.

Celebration (what I have) or Tahoma 31 would be my only considerations.

Seed wise, you can't kill common and it can look great

Sahara is a very good grass.

Thanks, guys, for the info. Ater the '22 kill off of StA I seeded Pennington's Smart Seed Texas Bermuda came in well but seems to be a water hog. Sure isn't heat tolerant and with water restrictions....

i note Hancock has a sale going on for Common. Anyone has experience with these folks? I might jump the gun and buy for a fall planting.

I doubt I gonna be a able to do much groundwork in this hardpan until then regardless of what I settle on.

foxfire said:

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Slowly replacing St Augustine with Bermuda, would like recommendations for drought tolerant and heat tolerant varieties. Considering Common or Saraha as an over seed for the fall- when it rains.

Any other thoughts for a Central Texas lawn?

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Monaco.

https://www.johnstonseed.com/product/monaco-bermudagrass/

Guys at Johnston Seed are really great and helpful. We work with on some other products and they recommended this one to us.

fightingfarmer09 said:

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foxfire said:

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Slowly replacing St Augustine with Bermuda, would like recommendations for drought tolerant and heat tolerant varieties. Considering Common or Saraha as an over seed for the fall- when it rains.

Any other thoughts for a Central Texas lawn?

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Monaco.

https://www.johnstonseed.com/product/monaco-bermudagrass/

Guys at Johnston Seed are really great and helpful. We work with on some other products and they recommended this one to us.

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I went to college with the guy who heads up Johnston Seed and owns the monaco bermuda grass - Okstate Agecon dept C/O 2004. We planted it on recommendation from our landscape guy last year when installing the yard at our new house. It definitely likes the good soil. It did well there. Our back yard is cut into a hill to accommodate the walkout/driveout basement. We did not plant into topsoil there and i had a couple patches that didn't come back this spring. I also had a couple areas in portions of the front yard that never sprouted. These areas were severely compacted from construction activities. Other factors could have been a combination of poor soil and soil compaction, sprinklers not spray patterned correctly, and the extreme conditions last summer. Everywhere that got planted was fertilized when planted. The yard was planted during our busy time at work last year and I didn't monitor it as close as i should have. I was hoping the landscape guy who planted it would help there. I would recommend it if you have decent topsoil to plant into and good coverage of your sprinkler system.

this is what it looked like in August of last year. It was planted in June



The parts i have been patching in this year, the bare spots in the back yard and the bare area to the south have been with the growtrax southern bermuda blend which is sunbird bermuda. It comes in a roll and you unroll it and water it. It has seed and fertilizer in the paper like mulch. Keep it watered and it will grow on concrete. I have been impressed.

This was the latest I planted 3 weeks and 3 days ago. Zero soil prep, just unroll and water water water. I had another sprinkler zone added andwill plant the areas where the waterlines went this week.

What's your opinion of this grass now that time has passed? Had a place tell me it was best for my shady area compared to other varieties today.