Eigenvector wrote:
"dpb" wrote in message ...
dpb wrote:

{... rototilling entire lawn/yard should be unnecessary...}

Unless, of course, the intent would be to try to eliminate the Bermuda
although unless your neighbors do the same thing at the same time its
futile...
Of course, even tilling won't kill the Bermuda tillers -- they'll just get
chopped up and regenerate. Only way to eliminate Bermuda entirely is
chemically over a long period of time (like a full year) or cart off the
infected topsoil. There is no practical way to eliminate all the root
system by tilling and even when spraying as soon as the existing dies,
there will be new coming from existing seed and that seed remains viable
for years.

It's a bugger to eliminate. Bindweed is easier I think...

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Well I'm not worried about Bermuda grass in my lawn, so long as its greenish
and doesn't have yellow flowers coming out of it I'm fine. I want to kill
it around my foundation, but that's for other reasons. But it is a bitch to
pull out of flower beds, pull one green shoot and before you know it you're
pulling up this 2 foot long root connected to another and another and pretty
soon your garden is toast.

Not telling me anything I don't know... It's the primary lawn
here that was put in in the 30s or maybe even earlier. Of course, here
where it's hot and dry, it does manage to grow where much else doesn't.
What I don't understand is why they didn't use the native buffalo
grass which is a jointed grass similar in many ways to Bermuda except
slower growing and not as aggresively annoying and much easier to dig out...

About all that is even reasonably effective is, once you've gotten it
cleaned out of a garden area is a deep border edging--but it has to be
deep. The overland tillers aren't too tough if you get them before they
fully root and joint again, but what comes from underground is, as you
say, a pita.

BTW, the black plastic on it's own won't be enough--it'll just run under
it and come out the other side. I've got it through the cracks between
sill plates and foundations, cracks in basement walls, anywhere there's
an opening...

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