VTTW Board Index

I read it can be uncomfortable for bare feet. 

I answered on the VS. If you are choosing between it and bermuda, go zoysia. If you are considering tall fescue, go with it over zoysia. If you're not a lawn nut and don't want to spend much money or time to make it really nice, Zoysia is probably the best of the three. Fescue will want more water than you normally get in hot summers, and bermuda will try to swallow your flower beds, your house, your pets, your grandchildren, and your soul.

OK, I just put in about 4000 sq ft of TifGrand Bermuda about 6 weeks ago.  I absolutely love it 10 fold over fescue.  It is soft and so far pretty easy to maintain and keeps crisp edges.  After it is established, you should ONLY water up to 1 inch per week only if it didn't get that through rainfall.  I wouldn't do it in Tennessee becasue of the short growing season, but here in Atlanta I would not go with anything else. 

Then you are now officially part of the problem.  :box:

I understand the draw to a grass that fills itself in and thrives in the heat, and there are some serious advantages to having an improved bermuda lawn . . . but that stuff is evil. It's like choosing a cockcroach colony as a pet because it will never die out . . . the downside is you live with fizzleing cockroaches.

Some of the common bermuda in my yard survived the five applications of roundup I hit it with last September . . . it is threatening my yard again already.

So, to summarize, Bermuda looks great, feels great, grows well and loves the heat but since it encroaches on your shade loving, heat intolerant, water needy, re-seeding required fescue lawn it is evil and should be destroyed?   :dunno:

I will quibble with you on "looks great, feels great" and you left out "ruthlessly invades your beds and gardens," but otherwise you nailed it.  :smile:

 :evillaugh:

Also, there's a reason why, when you start typing "bermuda grass" into Google, the second suggestion after "bermuda grass" is "bermuda grass killer."  :smile:

(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Btq_SsFyJG4/T-tOygAE2LI/AAAAAAAABCo/wewh5YX3qyo/s640/bermuda%2520google.jpg)

Not to jump into someone else's fight ( :biggrin: ), but those Google suggestions are based on popularity. Could it be that you Fescue control freaks are just incessant Googlers?  :laugh:

Perhaps. We are in desperate need of better tools to fight off the enemy.  :pin:

I really have no problem with 10EC growing bermuda in ATL (now if I lived next door to him, that would be different . . .). It's just such a problem here in the transition zone that I can never ever tell someone to grow it on purpose.

Agreed.  I would never put Bermuda in TN.  To short a season.

I just wish I could grow a KBG lawn here in Knoxville. It's the most beautiful grass, IMO, and spreads to fill in holes without being overly aggressive like bermuda. But it's just too hot here in the summers.

I was going to put in fescue but its too late in the year. It will never survive now and I do not have an irrigation system. Zoysia is no issue for barefeet as I read elsewhere?

As long as you get a finer-bladed variety I can't imagine it'd be that bad . . . though I don't know how well zoysia will do with planting now either. You're really less than 2 months from the beginning of the fescue seeding window. I think Zoysia is best done in spring-- like May-- but it may be okay to do in July if you keep it watered for awhile.

I work at a golf course and we have zyosia in our fairways...and I love the stuff.  Very easy to maintain as it needs little water and very durable.