Please Help!? Bermuda lawn(discovery)

[imafan26]

Discovery bermuda sounds like a great southern grass good shade tolerance, drought resistence, doesn't need a lot of mowing. Only problem, is I could only find information from a site that sold it.
Bermuda grass is beautiful and it is great for golf courses that have the staff to tend it.
It is nice and green and it is soft.
For lazy homeowner or one that hates to mow, weed, or deal with armyworms and pests. Also one that has heavy clay soil but does not really have drainage issues. Not much turf and it is planted on a slope so no puddling zoysia is a better choice. It also needs a reel mower to look its' best. But, back to bermuda

Soi prep is everything
Get a soil test. You can get a publication online and sent it to the nearest land grant college which is usually the cheapest lab. Home soil tests, are not that good. Often you really are testing the water and you don't get recommendations on what to do with it.
If you have sandy soil, great, if you have clay soil do a soil percolation test.
https://pss.uvm.edu/ag_testing/How_to_Ta ... Sample.pdf
https://www.treepeople.org/sites/defaul ... ainage.pdf

In either sandy or clay soil adding 6-8 inches of good quality compost +whatever fertilizer your soil test recommends., and till it into the same volume of soil. If your percolation test was not the best. Now is the time to put in the french drains and sprinkler system.

Grading is important. Make sure you grade away from the foundations and perimeter. Try to maintain a swale for proper surface drainage out of the yard. That way water will drain properly and not puddle and pool in the yard.

After you have taken care of the weeds, and no more come up, then put in your grass. If you want bermuda, that is fine. It is a good grass for southern locations, you just have to pay attention to its needs.
Water regularly and frequently until the grass is well established. Gradually back off. Instead of backing off to two days a week for x time. Decide how many days and how long you need to water by checking the soil. Water until the soil is evenly moist 4-6 inches deep. This is where a core aerator or auger can come in handy for testing. Later, they will come in handy when you have to dethatch, aerate, and topdress the lawn. The time it takes for the soil to get to that point is how long you have to water. Test from the third or fourth day to find out when the soil is almost dry. That is how long you wait between watering. The interval will change and you will have to water more often in summer and less in the rainy season. The cheat way to do it is to walk on the grass. If you step on the grass and it bounces back, it has enough water. If it leaves a footprint or the blades start to shrivel up it is time to water, if it is crispy, you waited too long and it won't look good. If you over water it will be mushy, the grass will be yellow and if you pull at it, the roots may be rotten.

If you graded right you should not have high and low spot in the lawn. If you are scalping you have a high spot, cut it down, if the grass is taller in areas or water pools, that is a low spot fill it. Mow the grass when it needs it. Do not mow more than 1/3 of the blade at a time. If you let the grass get to tall mow it every 5-7 days and adjust the height so you only remove 1/3 of the blade until you get to the desired height. 3/4 inch in cool season and 1.5 inches in summer.
The real reason I don't like bermuda, the bugs love it. If you don't want to do weed and feed, you will have to treat the lawn for pests which you have to identify to determine the best way to manage them. You have to know the life cycle of the pest to know when it will be the best time to control them and what to do to lesson the environmental impact.
This is why I love zoysia, if it is healthy, it can choke out weeds and it is a tough grass, not nice to walk on as it can be prickly but, bugs don't care for it either.
For myself, water is expensive. I have reduced the grass a lot and I don't water or feed it as much as I should, but it survives.

https://publications.tamu.edu/TURF_LANDS ... 0Lawns.pdf
https://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/p ... c1216.html