# Bermuda Hydroseeding gone bad



## MexTex (Sep 24, 2020)

I had the back area of my property hydroseeded with bermuda? at the end of July. I watered it 4 times a day as told with several tripods and impact sprinklers. Trust me everything was water well, but not to the point of being overly watered. I continued with this schedule for about two weeks because temps were in the mid to high 90's, then I backed off and only watered every three days or so. The yard was looking great! At about the 4th week I took out my Scag and mowed because the lawn was getting to over 3 inches tall. After I mowed the lawn looked even better. Within a few days the areas where my tires rolled over began to brown up and looked like they were starting to die. After about another week or two everything started looking thin and brown. So I did what I thought I should do and watered some more, but that did not help. I even bought some Scotts Southern Turf Builder because it was high in Nitrogen and spread that all over the lawn at the recommended rate (I made sure there was no weed killer in the fertilizer). Nothing has really seemed to help. We have had a lot of rain the past week or two and prior to this rain I put down some granular fungicide(Andersons Prophesy Broad Spectrum Fungicide on DG Pro), because I believe that to be a problem as well. I am at a loss and I don't know what to do. Any help would be much appreciated. By the way, is this even bermuda grass? It went from looking like a lawn to this...

Pre Hydroseeding:





Yard Started to come in nicely: At about week 3:





Current Situation:


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## sam36 (Apr 14, 2020)

When going from seed, it is best to water the area for a couple of weeks, then spray it down with roundup, then plant your seeds. In your pictures, I only see weeds, maybe a few sprouts of bermuda. And also those trees.. bermuda will not grow unless it gets more than 6 hours of direct sunlight. It will still germinate, but will stay tiny, and eventually be crowed out by other grass or weeds.


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## gonefishn2010 (Jun 15, 2020)

That sucks!! I can only imagine your frustration. I don't feel I am qualified to say what I think happened as I am new to lawn care and know nothing about hydo seeding. What i will say is i would smoke everything it that yard as soon as possible and plant some rye grass so you can atleast have a lawn through the winter. Then I would look into some quality bermuda sod for next season. I would only do a small section as you may have to much shade. See how that section of sod does then decide which direction to go. Good luck.


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## MexTex (Sep 24, 2020)

Makes me sick. Nothing like throwing away $3k in seeding, water and fertilizer. Is anything salvageable. And or is there anything I could say to the company that did the work? I followed everything they said to the T, but this is what I ended up with.

My goal is to have a nice area where I can play ball with my 4 boys free from a lot of bad hops. This is a dirt bike track.


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## gonefishn2010 (Jun 15, 2020)

Man I feel for you!! From the pics I don't see much of anything to save. Hopefully someone else will chime in and tell me I am wrong. I would definitely go after the company. If this is their business they should be able to tell you what went wrong. Ask them what the hell is this mess?!?! Shade? Crappy product? If its not your fault they should fix it or refund you.


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## sam36 (Apr 14, 2020)

Is the soil mostly sand or clay? Hard to tell but looks like a lot of sand. Perhaps the pictures are from a cloudy day, but I really don't see any sun on the lawn. Buying seed from an online shop and trying your luck is one thing, but here someone actually drove a truck to your house and hyrdroseeded into sandy soil covered in trees. For $3k, I would have expected some consultation, otherwise this does seem really dishonest. Bermuda will grow in sand, but it will take a lot more frequent water, but bermuda and trees really don't mix...

I think I see a few bermuda sprouts in the pics, hard to tell. There are some good pics here of seeded bermuda growing: https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=4967 as well as at the bottom of my lawn journal: https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=16821

You could try mowing as low as your mower will go before scalping the dirt and also putting out 5lbs of fertilizer per 1k sqft. That will get more sun light down to any smaller sprouts, but with fall coming up... bermuda really doesn't grow after September and if it hasn't built up a good root system by the first freeze.. it won't come back up in the spring.

If you want a cheap do-over in the spring, you could follow me. I've got about 40k sqft I need to seed. Plan is to start watering daily come March 1st, 2021 for a couple of weeks to let any weeds germinate. Then around mid march, if no freeze is in sight, I'll spray everything with roundup and put out seed. I think the best deal right now is Pennington Sahara II. You can get 50lbs of it shipped to your house for around $200. That will cover 1 acre. It germinates quick, grows quick, within 2 weeks should be 2 inches tall and mostly grows horizontally with very little vertical grow. It's way better than common bermuda.


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## nemodown (Aug 25, 2020)

Have you had soil test done? I seeded in July and was thinning out rapidly. Im in central florida and the soil is generally acidic but my soil came with a PH of 9 with very low phosphorus and potassium. My lawn is recovering now with adjustments


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## cityofoaks (Sep 8, 2020)

Did they give you any paperwork? There are only a handful of Bermuda types that are commonly seeded. Perhaps that would specify exactly what they put down. Sometimes a small amount of rye grass is thrown in with seedings as a nurse grass to help establishment in bare areas. Some of those photos look like you do have seedlings of some type hanging in there.

That tree cover doesn't appear to be that bad, you have a tree line which would probably result in some thin spots along the back but you should get good coverage in those large open areas unless I am missing something.


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## MexTex (Sep 24, 2020)

Appreciate the replies. There is not really any shade in the main, middle area. Over to the right by the chicken coop and behind the shop is where the shade starts. I did not plan for those shaded areas to do well, however they were sprayed anyhow.

The soil is mostly the dirt from the pool dig...it was not very sandy. We've had a lot of rain lately from the hurricane in the gulf and i think that stirred up the soil causing it to look the way it does. I have not done a soil test yet, but I plan on doing that.

I had no direct contact with the company that hydroseeded the lawn. I went through the landscaping company that I have used in the past and they contracted everything out. This company installed my irrigation, augustine sod around the pool and bermuda sod (for the batting cage) next to the shop and did a great job, so I just went with them and their recommendation. I left the owner a voicemail yesterday, so I will see what he says when he gets back to me. One of the things I've read while trying to figure all this out is due to all the rainfall we have experienced and the cloudy overcast days, it makes a perfect scenario for fungus. 90% of the bermuda that is growing has what I would describe as leaf spot on the blades. And I believe the leaf spot has in some cases turned into melting out (I believe that is the correct term).

Sam36:

I do like your plan. After all the research I have been doing. Watching "Docs" videos on bermuda and what not. I am very interested in taking on the seeding project. At this point with how it looks should I even throw more money at fertilizing whats currently there or just start focusing on weed control?

What I curerently have on hand:

1 bag of Scotts Southern Turf Fertilizer 
3 bags of 24-0-4 CX DIY Turf & Ornamental Fertilizer
1.5 bags of Andersons Prophesy Broad Spectrum Fungicide on DG Pro


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## tincan (Sep 4, 2020)

sam36 said:


> If you want a cheap do-over in the spring, you could follow me. I've got about 40k sqft I need to seed. Plan is to start watering daily come March 1st, 2021 for a couple of weeks to let any weeds germinate. Then around mid march, if no freeze is in sight, I'll spray everything with roundup and put out seed. I think the best deal right now is Pennington Sahara II. You can get 50lbs of it shipped to your house for around $200. That will cover 1 acre. It germinates quick, grows quick, within 2 weeks should be 2 inches tall and mostly grows horizontally with very little vertical grow. It's way better than common bermuda.


I like this idea of germinating the weeds and then killing them off. But March might be a little early. I would plan my schedule to have Bermuda seeded some time in May.

FWIW, I too had a failed hydro-seed (with tall Fescue). Hydroseeded in fall, it grew up nice over winter and early spring but by summer, it was infested with weeds and everything was turning brown. I think it was fungus and maybe the heat (I'm in the transition zone for warm and cool season grass). I was a lot more inexperienced then and decided to "nuke" the Fescue and go with Bermuda.

At the beginning of July, I sculpted the lawn (brought everything down to dirt as much as possible but did not apply a broad vegetation killer), added some garden soil and seeded with Bermuda seeds from a big box store (label says it is Gold Glove). Watered a lot on the hot days (like every three hours in the hot sun). I added starter fertilizer once the seeds started germinating. Some pictures:

Before


Sculpted and seeded with Bermuda seeds (Gold Glove)


3 weeks after seeding


7 weeks after seeding


11 weeks after seeding


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## sam36 (Apr 14, 2020)

MexTex said:


> Sam36:
> 
> I do like your plan. After all the research I have been doing. Watching "Docs" videos on bermuda and what not. I am very interested in taking on the seeding project. At this point with how it looks should I even throw more money at fertilizing whats currently there or just start focusing on weed control?


I would probably count it as a loss, but I would still try to reach out to the company. They might offer doing it over for free in the spring. I'd imagine they'd be spraying common bermuda, which is not bad, but it only grows vertically and must be "trained" (read: mowed frequently many times over months) before it will start to grow horizontally. But if the seed rate is high enough, initial horizontal growth won't be much of a need.

You should probably get a soil test, I made a post here about it. If you are going to re-seed, I would hit the area with roundup before the first freeze (or at least before November) so there will be less stuff coming up in spring. I don't know how serious you want to get and what equipment you have, but I'd do an application of pre emergent (prodiamine). That will keep any winter grasses from coming up and will leave less to have to worry about killing come spring.


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## sam36 (Apr 14, 2020)

tincan said:


> I like this idea of germinating the weeds and then killing them off. But March might be a little early. I would plan my schedule to have Bermuda seeded some time in May.


April is probably a better month around here but I'm going to be out of town some then. By May, it is 90+ everyday and would need a lot more watering. Most of where I'm seeding, a water hose won't reach so I got to try to time it with the spring rains and just hope for the best.


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