Bermuda Lawn Dominators
The Bermuda Lawn Dominators Podcast is your go-to resource for DIY lawn care enthusiasts looking to transform their lawns. Join hosts Skip Wheeler and Jason Crain as they provide practical tips, personal insights, and engaging discussions to help you dominate your lawn game. With a supportive community and a touch of fun with the "Lawn Beer of the Week" segment, this podcast is your ticket to achieving the lawn of your dreams and have fun on the journey. Let's get greener together!
Bermuda Lawn Dominators
Sip, Trim, and Flourish: The Balance of Lawn Maintenance and Beer Tasting
Hey there green thumbs and craft beer lovers, ready to transform your yard into a lush paradise while sipping on the perfect brew? We promise that our garden talk is just as refreshing as our beer recommendations. This week, we're navigating the world of grass, from the heat-loving Bermuda to the cool-weather loving Fescue and Kentucky Bluegrass, and bringing you practical tips to keep them flourishing. For those of you with more shadows than sun in your gardens, we've got you covered with our deep dive into shade-tolerant grasses.
But what’s a majestic lawn without the right tools to maintain it? We get down and dirty discussing the essential garden gear, from the power of rotary scissors for precise edging to the end-of-summer maintenance tips for your mowers. And speaking of equipment, we're also sharing some pro-tips for maintaining those lithium-ion batteries that power your tools, and the best techniques for watering and fertilizing your lawn through the sizzling summer months.
Let's not forget our golden rule – the greener the lawn, the better the brew. So, to keep you hydrated as you work up a sweat, our Lawn Beer of the Week is the refreshing Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, just the perfect companion for your summer lawn care routine. So, open your ears, and your beer cans, as we journey through the art of lawn care. Your ticket to a verdant backyard and the envy of your neighbors is just a play button away!
Welcome to the Bermuda Lawn Dominator's podcast, the one-stop destination for all things lawn care, where we unlock the secrets to achieving a pristine and dominating lawn. I'm Jason Crain and I'm here with Skip Wheeler. We're not experts, just passionate about lawns.
Speaker 4:Today we have an episode that's going to make your grass blade stand at attention. Your flower beds bloom with envy and your lawn equipment roar with appreciation. We're kicking things off by taking a close look at the crown jewel of lawns, the varieties of grass that turn your outdoor space into a verdant wonderland. We're also delving into the art of edging flower beds, that fine line between the wild and the groomed. And finally, keeping your lawn equipment in top-notch shape is essential for maintaining a lawn that's the envy of the neighborhood. Tune in as we share tips and tricks to keep your lawn mowers humming. But first let's quench our thirst with the Lawn Beer of the Week.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Lawn Beer of the Week, where we motivate your lawn care with a side of hoppy happiness. Join us as we sip on refreshing brews that pair perfectly with tending to your lawn. Get ready to enjoy some grassy goodness and raise a glass to a lawn well done. So what do we got this week?
Speaker 1:So this week we have the Linen Kugels, summer Shandy, all right, so lemonade beer. Yeah, so that's what a shandy is. A shandy is started off in Europe. It's a beer that's mixed with lemonade.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's good. It's kind of like the Arnold Parmander beers, but okay, I like that. And this is Linen Kugel. I'm not a big fan of most Linen Kugels, but I do like this one. Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, linen Kugel is out of Milwaukee, so they have a place in Chippewa and then in Milwaukee in Wisconsin. So, yeah, it's a nice summer beer. It's a wheat beer with a lemonade flavor. It's really good for after mowing your lawn. Yeah, it's perfect it tastes really good.
Speaker 4:I like this. You know, in when I first joined the Air Force I had a roommate that was from Wisconsin and he was a big Linen Kugel fan and maybe that's why I don't like Linen. Kugel because he would describe the beer he would. This is back in the 90s and not everybody knew about Linen Kugel, so he would describe Linen Kugels as a beer that was so thick you could stand pencils up in it. It just right. It made me it didn't make it sound very appetizing to me at all so right but then when I did try the original Linen Kugels.
Speaker 4:It is a thicker beer and so I just hadn't liked most of them. So I haven't tried too many. But this one here I like. It's a. It's nice, a little refreshing, with that lemonade flavor in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been looking for these for a little while. It took me a while to find them here in Texas, but I finally found some today, so yeah, yeah, I tend to like beers imported from the south of us or from the south of us, and the north of us.
Speaker 4:But there are some good beers from up north, I'd be, like that.
Speaker 1:What are we covering today? So today we're going to talk about the varieties of grass. We're going to talk about edging your lawn, your flower beds, yeah, and also about what to do to keep your lawn equipment going. So so we're going to start off talking about the different varieties of grass that we have Cool weather and warm weather grasses.
Speaker 4:Yes, all I've had around here is obviously warm weather grasses, so I've had Bermuda and St Augustine. That's my primary experience.
Speaker 1:And so I you know they. They divide the the United States up into zones right. For the cool weather. Have you seen those maps? You? Can google those maps if you want to see what zone you're in. But of course the the northern tier of states are, they're all the cool weather grass states, and then they have that transition, Transition through the middle. Yeah, and I used to live in the transit at the very southern part of the transition, right there.
Speaker 4:Oh, did you yeah.
Speaker 1:It dips down into North Texas a little bit. You know, right there I didn't realize that yeah. And then and then, of course, the southern states are the the warm season grasses and so, depending on where you live, you know you have to pick the type of grass that's going to work for that, for that climate.
Speaker 4:Well, and around here it's most often going to be one of those two I just mentioned. I don't even know. I have never seen anybody have anything else but one of the Bermuda or St Augustine around there. But I have lived in other parts of the country where I've had different things. I just didn't know anything about it at the time. I wasn't taking care of the lawn to that degree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so some of the cool weather grasses that we see here, the Fescue's, kentucky Bleed Grass, bent Grass and and Rye. Yeah, my, my dad. Whenever I was a kid he we had a house that had a several big mulberry trees in the front yard.
Speaker 1:Oh and he struggled with getting anything to grow underneath those mulberry trees. And one year he planted Fescue and it looked great. In the spring it came up and it was very pretty, but it did not last through the summer here. No, it can't handle the heat, even even though then you know we were living in that transition, the southern part of that transition zone. It was just too hot for that Fescue.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the Fescue, though, only needs like three hours of sun, so it's a really good grass for shade areas if you don't have the heat, so you don't mind replanting it every once in a while. I guess it'd be fine. Yeah, and it's supposed to have a moderate to high tolerance to heat, but in the Texas summer it didn't last that long, so yeah, I think I saw somewhere talked about if you're over 90 for very long, then some of these cool weather grasses just won't handle it for long.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:Right, they won't recover.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know we talk about Kentucky Bluegrass. I noticed that, so one of the on the Facebook group to get in the group. You know you have your questions.
Speaker 4:To keep the yeah, what's your favorite?
Speaker 1:grass and you see a lot of people answer Kentucky Bluegrass. So I don't know if you notice that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I do. You know, the nice thing about Kentucky Bluegrass is it's got a really good green and it spreads really easily. It also stripes really well. So, yeah, it's really nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on the lawns then yeah, I've never had never dealt with that. But I mean, like I've always lived in the either the southern part of the transition or in the warm season grass zone, so yeah, it's not anything that I've ever seen here. Only I've never been to Kentucky, I don't guess.
Speaker 4:I've been there. I didn't notice the grass of the time, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then we have a rye, which we do. See that around here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the annual rye, not as a full time all year round, not the perennial Right.
Speaker 4:Not the perennial rye, the angle rye, though. It requires full sun, right, but it's. But here it doesn't get so cold that it as long as you get it germinated in time it's, it'll make it through the winter, and I've considered doing it my. My big drawback you know what I'm mean is I've considered planning annual rye in the winter just to have a green lawn all through the winter, right? My problem with that is I don't know how I feel about being outside and mowing in January and February when it's cold. I don't like the idea of having to wear a coat to go mow the lawn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I understand that, because I would rather. I would rather mow in this 100 degree plus heat than in 40 degree. Yeah, I would too.
Speaker 4:My neighbor did it one year. I had warned him and he was 78 years old. I warned him and he was out there in January and February and he was cussing at them by that time. He was sick of having it and he would let it go as long as he could handle it, until he got frustrated with it. But I tell you what it looked really nice, it did look good.
Speaker 1:Yeah so.
Speaker 4:I've considered, especially with that robot lawn mower being the one doing the mowing right, I thought it might be worth trying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you don't have to get out there in the cold do? You, no, no the robot lawn mower. Do it for you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but the cold weather can be a little tough on those lithium-ion batteries, so I don't know. I haven't decided if I'm going to do it. If I did, it would just be the front yard, but then I got a water bill all through the winter. Now too right.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah.
Speaker 4:My vacation from water bills would be over, so I don't know, I haven't decided.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I kind of like that break. I love working in the yard and I love taking care of the yard and all that mowing and all of it, but it's kind of nice. You know, by the end of the season I'm ready for a little break for a few months and then start again in the spring.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I would like to have that break as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And I get motivated once it starts warming up and things start coming back to life in the spring. I'm kind of getting motivated to get the lawn done and I don't know if I would feel as motivated if I had to tend to the lawn to all winners, right, yeah, you get tired of it after a while, yeah, I think about that in Australia, where they have the opposite summers the best right. I don't even know if I could be motivated around Christmas to be doing what we're doing right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you talk about the dates. You know you have the three show dates for your lawn.
Speaker 4:Right the. Memorial.
Speaker 1:Day, july 4th, and Halloween. There It'd be Christmas. Yeah, exactly, easter, easter, easter, easter would probably be your end.
Speaker 3:One, yeah, thanksgiving.
Speaker 4:Christmas and Easter, except Thanksgiving's an American holiday.
Speaker 1:That's in not too many Australians they might get. I'm sure they have an equivalent version of it though.
Speaker 4:So what other cool winter grasses did you look at at all? The Toph SQ Did you look at those at all?
Speaker 1:I liked that. The Toph SQ too yeah, pretty low maintenance. It has a moderate to high heat tolerance I mean cool tolerance and it's very good in drought, so it has a good drought tolerance to it too. It's good if you have moderate to high traffic areas too. Okay, yeah, so if you're out playing on it a lot. If you have kids playing on it or pets, it's good for them.
Speaker 4:I know that fescue is a clumping grass right, so I did see that they are making. There's a hybrid out there called RTF. Have you seen that?
Speaker 4:I have not it's called a rhizomus Rhizomus, toph SQ, and so it grows, it spreads instead of clumps like regular fescue. So if you want it for your lawn, if that's something you're interested in, look for the Toph SQ RTF. But the problem with it, I would think, especially if you have remuda, is that this is a wide blade grass so it's not going to mix real well, it's not going to mix in with your remuda. It's going to look a little odd.
Speaker 1:But if you have.
Speaker 4:St Augustine, it might be good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, because it?
Speaker 4:should blend with that design, but if you are going to mix it in with your St Augustine, then I would look for the RTF. It's what you want. It's a low maintenance grass too. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort doesn't take a whole lot of nitrogen.
Speaker 1:Bint grass is another one that I looked at for the cool season Grass is that it has high tolerance for like water stress. I mean low tolerance for water stress. You can only grow it where it's going to be cool through the summer.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think in Tennessee, and those areas is where you're going to see those right, yeah, yeah, maybe. Kentucky, where it's a little bit more wet than here we go too long without water around here at times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bent grass does take a lot of water. So, yeah, you'd have to go somewhere where you live, somewhere where it rained a lot, or you'd have a crazy hot water bill.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it wouldn't be something you could afford to keep going here. Was there any other on the cool side? I didn't see any others that I looked at.
Speaker 4:I mean yeah, Well, neither so we don't have a lot of experience either. It's because, with the cool weather, grasses, just because of where we've lived most of our lives, you know, even though I've lived in different parts of the country and even in a couple places in the world, at the time I wasn't paying attention to the lawn or the types of grasses I had, so mostly on those military installations I was just mowing it to make sure I didn't get written up you know, right I wasn't too worried about what was in it.
Speaker 1:You didn't ask them what it was Right, you just kept it mowed.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, kept it mowed and I tell you there's been places that I've lived that's been easier than others I mentioned before. Living in Guam, you didn't have to do anything. It just it rained enough and it was the natural cover. I believe that was a Bermuda, oh it was. It was a tropical area, so probably, but that one was easy, that one was just mowed. I mean there, you could literally stick something in the mud and it would grow Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure Bermuda would do well there, because you know you see it growing through the concrete and the asphalt. Yeah, so I'm. You know, I just got newly-sotted jar. I say that every episode, so I'm sure.
Speaker 4:I don't know that it's so newly-sotted anymore, right yeah?
Speaker 1:But they left a couple pieces of sod at the end of the sidewalk. So they just put a sidewalk around the houses that were built and they haven't built the house behind us yet in that lot, and so the sidewalk ends at the end of our yard. Oh yeah, and they left a couple pieces of that sod on the half of it's on the sidewalk and half of it's in the dirt, and it is just as green and growing. I mean even on the part on the sidewalk.
Speaker 4:I'm surprised in this heat that side with the sidewalk hadn't burned up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's probably two or three inches tall.
Speaker 4:Oh wow, yeah, you have to demo your sidewalk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4:Well, I've lived also up in New Jersey in that area and I don't remember it all. I don't recall anybody really putting a lot of effort into the lawns, but once again I lived on a military installation, so we were just trying to so do they require you to water it so much?
Speaker 1:No, no, just keep it.
Speaker 4:I mean they want you to keep it looking maintained. So defining what maintained is isn't done. So as long as there was something growing there, you know if it was bare dirt they would say something, but never really had that problem. You know they don't have sprinkler systems in those houses or anything. So if you were going to maintain it it would be a lot of work and really that's what you know turned me from passive I mean I've always enjoyed the lawn but actually starting to get really active in it was once I got that sprinkler system and that's when I really got really interested.
Speaker 4:Because now, all of a sudden it was a little easier to maintain it at a base level maintain that base level. So I started getting more interested in taking care of it and making it look nice. It took that sprinkler system for me Other guys I've known that and I've known guys in the military bases that were very into it and they would move the water sprinklers around. But you know I was just afraid of waking up the next morning and remembering I'd left it on all night or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done that before.
Speaker 4:So down here though there's. What about the warm season grasses?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we have a centipede. I don't know how much you've dealt with centipede. I haven't really.
Speaker 4:I've never dealt with it. I did a little research on it. I saw that it's a low maintenance but it's not a very dark green grass, so it's naturally a light green, and one of the problems that they say people have with it is that they will over fertilize it, trying to make it darker green.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, because it's so light.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but it is very drought tolerant, yeah. So that's about all I know about. I've never dealt with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's pretty popular in the Southeast, yeah, but I've never I've never really dealt with it at all, really.
Speaker 4:Well, if you want a good low maintenance lawn and you don't mind it being a lighter green, that centipede should work well for you. The guy said it only takes about two pounds of nitrogen a year for that lawn, so a lot less than the others.
Speaker 1:Yeah it is. So we have a Zoysha yeah, and that is something that I actually considered at my previous house.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Whenever I moved into the house, we were in the middle of this very, very bad drought and everything was dead and it had St Augustine at some point and there was a small patch of St Augustine in the middle of the yard and I thought I was looking at options that would work in that yard and it's something that would grow in the shade, because it's a pretty shaded yard, and so I was looking at Zoysha to kind of fill in around that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a fairly shade tolerant glass.
Speaker 1:But then we got a ton of rain and the St Augustine took off and just took over the whole yard, so but that was something I was looking at because it's shade tolerant, it's a heat tolerant too, so and pretty drought tolerant also. It's like the Bermuda and the St Augustine there.
Speaker 4:And it's a thin bladed grass as well, right, right. So you could mix it with your Bermuda, I guess, for your shaded areas possibly, possibly? Yeah, that may be something to look at for my shaded areas. I haven't tried to tackle them in the sense of planting something there. I've done more of a repurposing the space. Appreciate it, yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of times that's easier to repurpose it than trying to find something that will grow. Yeah, and so we also have a St Augustine, which I have a ton of experience with.
Speaker 4:Like I said, I had the front yard I found St. Augustine to be very low maintenance.
Speaker 1:Yes and same.
Speaker 4:Yeah, very easy to take care of. It just takes a lot of water and down here that that could be hit or miss.
Speaker 4:The problem is is, once you start losing water, it's not like the Bermuda. It doesn't just bounce back like Bermuda does. Right After a good rain, bermuda greens up and turns back to life like nothing ever happened, even though it was brown and crunchy the you know, two weeks before that. But, st Augustine, it starts dying off and you just have these big bare spots that have to be, that have to grow back in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a. Really I felt like the lawn looked really good at that house, that St Augustine, and, like I said, it was very shaded, so it was. I couldn't get Bermuda to grow there, it was too too much shade, and so the St Augustine worked for me really well. It was it. Also I didn't have to do much post emergent weed care.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah with the St Augustine. No, me neither.
Speaker 1:Because it would. It would choke out all the weeds after it started growing. So I just put some pre-emergent on each year and very little spots for it. And yeah, when I had St.
Speaker 4:Augustine, I went to organic weed control because it was rare that I had weed issues but and it really gave me a false sense of an ability to take care of weeds with organic stuff. Not that you can't, but in Bermuda lawn it takes a lot more work to try to do it with organics, but in the St Augustine I found it was a little easier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the only problem I had with the St Augustine is, you know, it's the broad, broad leaf, broad blade grass, and so whenever you had you had to watch the post emergent weed killers that would kill off the broad blade weeds, you know, like crab grass and stuff, because a lot of those would really affect your St Augustine.
Speaker 4:That's true, I did have those issues as well and I forgot about that. It's been a while since I've had a St Augustine lawn, but yeah, you have to be a little bit more careful with your weed killers, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's spread. It spread really quickly, like very similar to Bermuda, and so you know I had Bermuda in the back, st Augustine in the front, and the quickness of the spread of that grass throughout the whole yard, I mean it was about the same. You know, I started off with a very little Bermuda in the back and a lot of dirt and it spread through the whole thing. And same thing with the St Augustine.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Spread really quickly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when St Augustine is healthy and getting plenty of water, it'll spread really fast. Yeah, I mean, I guess the same for any grass, but that St Augustine does cover quickly.
Speaker 1:So, and that brings us to Bermuda, which is what we're all about now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's what we know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly so with Bermuda we have several different varieties which we do with these other grasses too, but Bermuda is what we really focus on here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, what we talk about a lot, so we're more aware of the varieties. Now I have not. I've got the builder grade. I think it's TIFF 419. Here is what it is in my lawn. I couldn't be 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is, yeah that's what I have is the TIFF 419.
Speaker 4:That's the most common that I see them putting down for new builds and I've had great luck with it. Some of the neighbors when we first moved out here they struggled with it as well as I did as well, but they, we all struggled with it in the beginning because a lot of us were coming from St Augustine homes and we were mowing it like St Augustine and that'll that'll mess you up with Bermuda.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the TIFF 419 is something that they use on a lot of sports fields too. So, it's, it's like most Bermuda varieties. It's drought tolerant, heat tolerant, traffic, tolerant traffic tolerant. Yeah, bounces back really well.
Speaker 4:People will see the nice lawn when it. When it is nice, the the tell their kids don't, don't stand on his lawn. I'm like, no, it's fine. If my lawn can't handle the traffic then I don't want it. Right, we have people coming and going and I I like the idea that you can stand on my lawn and use it like a lawn.
Speaker 1:I don't want a lawn that you can't be on. Yeah, yeah, that's what a lawn is for Right For people to get out and enjoy, and if you can't be on it because you're going to kill the lawn, then why have a lawn?
Speaker 4:I've never understood the grumpy old man.
Speaker 1:Get off my lawn yeah.
Speaker 4:I want people to be able to walk on it and it's it's been a great grass. For that I've not had any problems with people wearing out a path, although I mean it can happen for sure, but just here we haven't had that problem, even though there's a, you know, it's kind of a straight path between the back door and our fire pit. Maybe we just don't go back there enough, but there's never been a path born, yeah, although ants sometimes will make a path.
Speaker 1:I'll catch them. Yeah, I think they're. They're chewing their way through, though.
Speaker 4:That's true, they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so one that's close to this is a TIFTuff Bermuda. Yes, so the TIFTuff is. It was developed with the goal of having a high drought tolerance, so it's supposed to you're supposed to be able to use like 38% less water on the TIFTuff than on the other similar varieties of Bermuda. So that's, and now it's also supposed to have a higher shade tolerance too.
Speaker 4:I haven't known anybody that's had any.
Speaker 1:I don't either. I noticed that some, some people in the group have it and it seems to work really well for them, but I have never seen it personally that I know of.
Speaker 4:I'm not sure what part of the country is putting that in as a standard. You know, I think a lot of people just end up with what's standard, with the builder or whatever was in their house when they moved there. Yeah, if I was to redo my lawn, I'd probably do that though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of. I think a lot of. The standard builder grade is the TIFTWay 419 and in the celebration, yeah, celebration Bermuda, which is very similar to the TIFTWay 2.
Speaker 4:Now the Tehoma 31. I see you wrote down here as well. I'm not familiar with that one at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was developed by I wish you Oklahoma State University. Okay, so they've actually done. They've done some research and they've developed some different varieties of Bermuda grass. Actually, they were looking for a turf grass that was had a little bit more cold tolerance to it. Okay, so they came up with the Tehoma 31. So, in the places you know, if you're in the transitional zone like we talked about in the middle of the US North Texas, oklahoma, yeah.
Speaker 1:Kansas, those areas. Tehoma may work better for you because they tested it against other Bermuda grasses that were in the cold and to see. So they all go dormant and die off. But the Tehoma 31 seemed to come back a lot better than the other ones. So that was their goal with the Tehoma 31. So that's probably a better grass. If you're not in the, you know the southern warm season more of the transitional.
Speaker 4:We have a large Bermuda lawn dominator group out of Oklahoma and they have their own Facebook group as well. So let us know you guys from Oklahoma if that's what you're using or if you're familiar with it at all. I haven't seen it, so it might have been good for you up there in North Texas where you were at. It might have been a good grass.
Speaker 1:It might have been, yeah.
Speaker 4:And then the last one you have here is Bimini. Yes, that sounds like an island grass.
Speaker 1:It does sound like an island grass, but Bermuda is also an island right.
Speaker 4:Well, this.
Speaker 1:So it's similar to the Tifway 419. It's a hybrid. Yeah, and it gets that dark green color. So it has a really dense canopy on it too. So it's a rapidly spreading and it's quick to recover from injury. So, if you know, if you spill too much fertilizer on it or you know, you see these guys on the group, that guys women too spill too, much stuff on the lawn and there's a huge dead spot. They're like what do? We do and everybody says water it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's all you can do. Yeah, I spilled a little bit of oil on mine this year. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So, but this one is supposed to bounce back from things like that a lot quicker than the others, and it's one of the most durable turf grasses that there are out there. It establishes the root thick root system really quickly too.
Speaker 4:Okay, well, there's a lot of different grass options for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. You wouldn't know that there's. I mean, I didn't know coming into this Bermuda world that there were so many varieties of Bermuda. You know, I just had the common Bermuda back in my old house and then after I got on, you know, in this group and I started looking at all these different kinds of grasses and in the way they look, you know how everyone can get their lawn looking so you know like a golf course, you know, looking really good.
Speaker 1:And that's when I really started studying it, you know I was like, if I could have whatever I wanted, you know what would. I want kind of grass on what I want.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I think I'm with you. I think I would go with Tift Tough if I could do it all over again, but you know I'm happy with the Tiftway 419 that they gave us at this new place.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm happy with mine, it just took me a little while to figure out how to make it look good. Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know there's also. There's other varieties too that we hadn't even talked about. We like coastal Bermuda they use for hay. There's all kinds of Bermuda out there, the you know, and a lot of the hybrids are only going to be available on site. So if you're going to the store to buy seeds, then it's gonna be. I don't know, I don't know which ones are available in seed. It's mostly. It's not gonna be the hybrids for sure. Right, it's not the hybrids, Right.
Speaker 1:But hybrid seeds are all sterile, so you can't. You can only get through sod, yeah.
Speaker 4:But I did seed some of my lawn that wasn't sodded. It turned out okay. It mixed and okay. Just fine, we're grown together. It's not great. You can see a line for sure.
Speaker 1:You can tell the difference between the two different types.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but just so you know, if you're out there looking, the seeded stuff is not gonna be any of the hybrids. You can't get the hybrids except in sod.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I had actually bought seed when I had the common Bermuda to overseed, but but I'd never used it. After I started mowing, watering, weeding, fertilizing, then I didn't have to, you know, they just started growing on its own.
Speaker 4:Yeah, If you take care of those basics, it'll any grass will take off. Yep, Well, I guess our next thing here is talking about our where we don't want the grass right, Keeping the grass out. So our flower beds? Yeah, Now you have new flower beds. How is that going?
Speaker 1:Well, I had a lot of grass in those flower beds, already, already, yeah. Yeah, so it's what I'm probably two and a half months into having this yard and it was, yeah, it was getting a little out of hand actually keeping the. So what the what they the landscaper who did did our lawn did was they soldered up to a certain point, they put mulch down and then, they just put bricks right around that, on top of the sod next to the mulch.
Speaker 4:Oh, not even in the dirt, not even in the dirt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it didn't create a barrier, so the sod was underneath those bricks and it was definitely growing into the oh yeah into the flower bed.
Speaker 4:But you've moved the bricks and so or you've done or removed the sod that was underneath the bricks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I yeah, my first thought was to remove. Remove the bricks back right. Mm-hmm. A little bit, but we bought one of those manual edgers that you hold. It looks like a spade.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you step on it.
Speaker 4:Yep, I have one of those as well.
Speaker 1:And so my wife actually went down the the edges of it with that just to break that off. And then, whenever I I got down on the ground and started, you know was arranging the bricks or whatever, and I noticed I could just pick up that sod.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Right off, and so I picked all the sod up, put the bricks back where they were, and so it's been two weeks. I went out there today and there were there was a few places where the grass had, like, actually spread into the bed and then took root and was spreading you know, and so they didn't.
Speaker 1:it didn't get rid of that, so I had some just like five or six places where I had to do that, but before I mean that grass was growing just as good in the bed as it was in the lawn. Yeah, it's a struggle to keep it out of there, and so I was trying to take the string trimmer around the backside of the bricks, you know the bedside of the bricks and go down with the string trimmer and trim that, but it was throwing all the mulch into my yard.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah. And I have that new reel mower and I didn't want mulch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly so. So that was a pain, so, but so far this has been working. I have two words of caution with, though with. This is so with this edger, we have managed to cut our internet connection, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:So I remember that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we, my wife and I, both work from home, so that was not a good thing. So, and then today I noticed that one of the we have that drip irrigation. That's right under the sod, one of those lines we cut in half.
Speaker 4:Those are easy to fix, but yeah, I didn't think about that either. Well, at least you got it fixed. So you know I went through the same process that you're going through. Ours was done the same way, except without bricks, so ours was just a hard stop.
Speaker 4:And then they put mulch down and had the flowerbeds, which is fine, and I would just have to come through with a shovel everyone's wall and make a hard edge. Yeah, I mean, it looks good, it looks really good, but eventually I got tired of doing it. So once I got tired of doing it, I paid a guy to come in and put a brick wall around our flowerbeds, yeah.
Speaker 4:And he dug down probably three or four inches, probably four, four, six inches really, and put the concrete in and then put the bricks on top of that.
Speaker 1:So it's kept it out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no problem. No problem at all with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a pretty good barrier. I have used the, you know the flexible plastic type. Oh yeah, edging before, and as far as keeping the grass out, it's not that great. I mean, it keeps them all in pretty well, but it's not a really good, good barrier. It just gives you good good line to weed, eat and then try to keep the grass out that way. I'm hoping that this edge I see the pictures on the Facebook group of the guys who have that edge, you know with nothing you know, it's a living edge, I think, is what they call it.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it looks great, and it looks great, and so and that's what we have in our backyard is they didn't put any of the bricks around that one, so they have that living edge, and that's the look I'm going for right now. I think eventually we will do what you did and have some kind of stone or brick wall.
Speaker 4:Yeah, if you get tired of messing with it, but as long as you stay on top of it, it's not bad to do the living edge. It's just if you miss a couple weeks, or you know I don't enjoy edging this. Yeah, the edging is one of the worst jobs to me too, so that's why I ended up going with that. I did try some metal edging for a little while and it worked okay. Slightly better than not having anything there.
Speaker 4:Right, I guess it wasn't. Yeah, that's why we ended up going with the bricks. It was just I needed some. I needed a thicker barrier between the grass and the flowerbeds and, to be honest, if I'm a long guy, I'd rather have no flower beds but. I guess it kind of looked funny if I didn't have anything in the front yard.
Speaker 1:I thought I was thinking whenever I was working on this. I thought I'm just going to keep moving these bricks back until pretty soon, the grass will just have taken over everything, and I don't even have a bed to worry about.
Speaker 4:So you know that's the way I started with my trees. So originally when they put my trees down there was no grass around the bottom of it. They just put some mulch there. Then over time I just kind of removed the mulch, let the grass take over. But then as the tree got big enough, then the shade started coming.
Speaker 3:It got big enough, and then the grass was dying.
Speaker 4:So it had the opposite problem I couldn't keep it out before and now I can't keep it in there, so yeah, so I ended up having to go back to having something around the tree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and I'm looking at these the rotary scissors.
Speaker 4:Have you seen those? Yeah, I know Jordan Nessel uses them from the lawn tools. Oh yeah, he has a few videos on them. It looks really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so I've been looking at those seriously. I think it would help, especially with that living edge that's what he does with them as well.
Speaker 4:I mean he also edges with them and I guess we do eats a little bit with the tube. But he does the living edge all over his yard and it looks when I think of the perfect way of doing it. If you haven't seen his videos, check them out. But his lawn looks and his flower beds look amazing. They always look really good and he uses that system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm seriously thinking about it, so I'll let you know. Yeah, I'd be interested to know how, what you think of those.
Speaker 4:We also have to talk about maintaining our mowers. We're mostly through, getting through the end of the summer here and maintaining our mowers can be a pain Not this time of year. I typically am looking at making sure I need or resharpening my blades, whether it's on my reel or my rotary either one. What else do you typically do this time of year? Anything this time of year.
Speaker 1:Well, usually, before I put the mower away for the winter, I add fuel stabilizer.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I do that too.
Speaker 1:But one thing that I found. So where I lived before, I could not find the ethanol free gas hardly anywhere. No.
Speaker 4:I can't find it here either.
Speaker 1:Well, I can tell you where they have it here.
Speaker 4:Oh, they do. Did you find it when else? It's at the.
Speaker 1:QT on the loop.
Speaker 4:Okay, I know.
Speaker 1:And that just happened upon it. I was, I needed to get gas for my new lawn mower and I pulled in there and I was like oh, ethanol free, it's expensive, yeah. I'm sure I mean you don't need but a couple gallons. You know so at a time, so it's not that bad, but yeah if you're running a rotary or a reel.
Speaker 4:But I've got that tractor and. I go through about six gallons.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know Lowe's also sells it in the, but it's in a can, like buying, like on the shelf, like buying.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah like buying milk. It's not cheap.
Speaker 4:Yeah it's more than milk too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very expensive.
Speaker 4:I've got it, I've gotten those before and they have the premix too for like chain salts. So I've bought it for that stuff, but I've never. I didn't know there was anywhere around here that sold it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that's what I have right now. And so you know, if you buy gas with, if it has more than 10% ethanol, then and you run it in your lawn mower, you need to get some some kind of fuel stabilizer in there to help, you know, keep the corrosion down on the carburetor and everything, but if you can find the ethanol free around it in there, that's the best for your lawn mower.
Speaker 4:Well, you know, on my reel more I run the it has a fuel shutoff valve. So at the end of mowing I turn that fuel shutoff valve and let the mower run all the gas out of that carburetor. That tends to help keep the maintenance down on mine as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:If you're not doing that, you might try that if you're having any carburetor issues. You know the biggest problem is at the end of the season, leaving that gasoline in there, so always try to run it out if you can. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I've usually done on all of my equipment. Even when I had a gas weed eater, then you know I'd run the gas out of it. Well, in the I had a chipper shredder. That always ran the gas out of it, but I usually back then it was just ethanol gas all the time and I kept the fuel stabilizer in there all year round. But yeah, but if you're gonna let it sit over a few months, you really need to have something in there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and if you take care of the gas and the oil, if you take care of it and maintain the mower, those lawn mowers will last you for a long time. I've got one that I gave my in-laws, that I bought in 2003,. Still running 20 year old 20 years yeah.
Speaker 4:It still starts in the first pool and it's just because I've been paid attention to the gasoline and changing the oil. Now I changed the oil every year at the beginning of the year. I know a lot of people don't do it every year, but yeah. I just find it a little bit. It's easy to start this spring off with the new air filter, oil filter and or not, yeah, if it has one Like on the right normal, it has oil filter and it's just easier to start fresh every year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something that I am not really good about doing.
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so probably every couple of years, I think.
Speaker 4:I think that's the norm.
Speaker 3:I think that's what most people do.
Speaker 1:It's just, I don't, I don't ever think about it. You know, with the now you have your car tells you when you need oil change.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And so you need your lawn mower to tell you the lawn mower doesn't do that, so I need it to remind me.
Speaker 1:But for me about 50 hours, I guess, of use something like that. Yeah, that's what they say about 50 hours, yeah, For me just the routine.
Speaker 4:That's why. That's another reason I like to do it every year, because if I start the year off the same every year, then it's. I don't have to wonder if I did it last year or not.
Speaker 1:Right and you, you know you don't if you do it more than you need to it's not going to hurt anything? No, but if you don't do it enough, then it will, so it's better to to have that routine like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it is, it's a good idea. So the other thing is just cleaning that mower deck. Yeah, so if you ever mow wet grass which I try to avoid, you know there's no problem with mowing wet grass as far as the lawn's concerned. I used to think it would cause an issue with the lawn. Right, that's not the problem, it's your equipment. And then that grass gets caked on there. So if you ever end up mowing wet grass, make sure you get under there and clean that deck out right away. Yeah, if that gets caked on, what happens is it traps the moisture up against that steel and that's what causes the rusting. So, yeah, keep that. Keep that mower deck clean, keep the blade sharpened.
Speaker 4:You know, do you sharpen your own blades? I?
Speaker 1:did before I got this real mower. I don't. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do now. Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 4:On the California trimmer. I can show you how to do that. So there's a yeah, we can do that here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you do that with back-lapping.
Speaker 3:Have you watched these videos? Yes, yep.
Speaker 4:And some diamond dust that you can get from AutoZone. The grinding dust is what it is. It's that diamond grinding dust. I've used it. That's what I was doing for mine. Now, how are you? What about your rotary mower? The rotary mower.
Speaker 1:I would take the blade off and I would. I had a bench grinder that would sharpen the rotary mower.
Speaker 4:I was in mine with a angled grinder. Do that way and then, once you've sharpened it, you want to check and make sure it's balanced.
Speaker 3:So a lot of people forget to do that yeah, and I have forgotten to do it too.
Speaker 1:I have too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but if you keep it balanced, keep it sharp, you can tell a huge difference. I forget how bad it, or I don't realize how bad it is until I sharpen it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same, yeah. Yeah, that's one thing that I would do at the beginning of this each season was sharpen that blade and then, just so I'd remember it. But there's been times that I've gone, you know, through the season a couple months, two or three months, and I would just think, well, I'm gonna sharpen the blade, and then I sharpen it and I'm like I should have done this a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 4:This is so much better than it was. Yeah, it does make a difference for sure. Well, that's it on the maintenance. So I mean there's probably plenty of other maintenance things you can do too we this is talking about your lawnmower maintenance, but there's also, if you're still running the gasoline weed eater, my recommendation is to pour the gas out at the end of the season and do not and run that. Run it until all the gas is out of the carburetor. I've replaced more carburetors on gasoline weed eaters than anything else.
Speaker 4:They're quick to get gummed up with, especially with the F, that all they're quick, they are. I've had a lot of trouble with them, so if you're having any trouble with yours, you know. The nice thing is the carburetors are cheap. You can use to get them for $10 to $20 on Amazon and they work just fine. I haven't had any problems with them, but it's just a pain.
Speaker 1:And they're really simple. If you want to clean it out, try to clean it out yourself. I've done that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've done this.
Speaker 1:And I'm no mechanic at all, but they're not so simple. Yeah, they're not hard to, even on the lawnmowers. It's pretty easy. So one thing that has helped me tremendously is changing from a gas weed eater to electric yeah. The electric weed eaters nowadays are so much better than they used to be and you get a good one with a good battery and it's so much easier. It's not in day the difference between the gas, I mean the electric weed eater that I have now on the first one that I ever owned.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I've been using electric for several years and I won't ever go back to a gas one. I won't either. It's just so much easier, and you don't have to worry about storing it in the winter. You know what you want to do with those batteries, though, is you want to charge them to about 60% of their capacity lithium-ion batteries at the end of the season and let them? If you're going to let them sit, just let them sit there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:You don't want to be, you don't want them charged all the way to their capacity. Yeah. They don't develop memories like the old one with those nickel, cadmium cadmium, yeah, cadmium. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Cadmium batteries.
Speaker 4:They don't develop those memories like that. So you want to put yeah about 60% and you can leave it sit for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I usually keep two batteries charged through the season and in that way if I ever run out, but the battery life is a lot better than it used to be, and then how long you can go on one charge is a lot a lot better than it has ever been.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'd recommend battery-powered equipment over the gasoline equipment, just based on the last few years of my experience. Okay, what do we got on these shout-outs for this week?
Speaker 1:So the first one we have is Jeff Bennett. He's asking how often is everyone throwing down fertilizer? So we've talked about the fertilizer in the past and how often we put down fertilizer and what we've learned through our experiences. So there's a lot of answers on here around four weeks, three to four weeks.
Speaker 4:Every other week. I see Jeff Bryant. There's it every other week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of people that do the spoon feeding.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I do mine about every four to six weeks. This year I've skipped a few weeks because of the heat and the drought, but normally I do mine every three to four as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I do Around four weeks.
Speaker 4:For me it's the routine, right? So if I do it like on the first of the month, then it's easy to just go every four weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you can remember that really easy. Yeah, like what Jason Miller says, he does DEF iron baby shampoo first and third, and then 1313, 1334 00, epson salt second and fourth week, so DEF. So my son is now a truck driver. Yeah, so I was telling him, he's, he was telling me about fueling his truck and he's like, yeah, and sometimes we have to buy a DEF. You know what DEF is? Yeah, did you know, people are using that on their lawns and he's like for real.
Speaker 1:And I was like yeah, he's like oh yeah, that kind of makes sense. It has a lot of nitrogen in it, right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's cheaper yeah.
Speaker 1:That's why he said it's like definitely cheaper than then fertilizer, yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, Jeff, your lawn looks great. Yeah, it does. Your flower beds look really good there. This is a great picture. It looks like you've definitely sanded a few times for sure. Good job. What's the other one we got?
Speaker 1:Got.
Speaker 4:Jake Lofton. Oh, Jake Lofton.
Speaker 4:Yeah, here we go the Texas. In the Texas heat, it is better to water less time but more often during the week, or is it? Or still soak the yard once per week. Well, I go to. I'm using that ratio so it does it on its own, so it figures out when the based on the weather, those, how dry the soil is getting when it needs to. But if you're mangly, watering or whatever, or you got a traditional sprinkler system, that is not the smart one. I would do at least twice, if not three times a week, maybe when it's this hot. I mean, I don't know, it's, it's kind of the trial and error really. What are you doing on yours right now?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm doing, I'm abiding by the water restrictions that we have going on right now Once a week, once a week, yeah. So yeah, after my crazy water bill, I'm following the rules. Yeah. And so I'm watering once a week. I water a little bit early, early in the morning, like 3am. And then later on in the evening after sunset I water a little bit more then. So, but just once a week, just once a week, yep.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm trying to get about an inch and a half down or so.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly that's what I'm looking for. Does that seem to be working okay? Well, I'm one week into it and it's okay I can. The grass is not as green as it was when. I was watering you know, almost every day 45 minutes a day. But it's, it's still, you know, green, mostly green. Yeah, I can tell the difference, but I think, jake, probably the right answer.
Speaker 4:The textbook answer would probably be to water once a week, and water deep. Yeah, the way you get your roots to go deeper, yeah, you definitely don't want shallow roots in this heat because it'll lawnwitting lasts as long?
Speaker 1:No Sure, because there's no moisture on the surface at all.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, no, no, yeah I think.
Speaker 1:I think I'll try to go deep, and probably once or twice a week is what I do. It's shooting for that, probably an inch and a half.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that's pretty much what most people are saying on on his post. There's a deep and infrequent so best.
Speaker 3:And I agree.
Speaker 4:If you have any questions about your lawn or anything else, just put it on the Facebook group and ask. There's plenty of people that'll help you out and lots of questions that have already been answered before. So do a search on the page. You may find several answers or several times where people have asked the same question. And if you don't find it on there, post it. Positive people will help you out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people have helped me out lots, and so a lot of people don't even know it, just because I searched through the group to find the answer that I was looking for. So this episode we covered the different varieties of grass, where those grasses are grown mostly, where they thrive, and, more specifically, we talked about Bermuda grass and the different varieties of Bermuda grass that we have out there and and where you might want to use those. We also talked about different ways to keep the the grass out of your flowerbed, how you keep those edges of the flowerbed sharp and looking pristine. You know there's different, different ways to to handle that border, whether you do it with actual material like stone or brick, or whether you have a living edge that you you keep cut. And then we also talked about how you need to maintain your, your lawn equipment, your mowers, your weed eaters and everything, and especially whenever it's getting time to put them up for the season. You know you don't want to leave gasoline in there. You want to keep the fuel stabilizer in there and keep them clean and running well. So that wraps up this episode.
Speaker 1:As the summer sun starts to wane, it's time to give you a Bermuda lawn the world treatment it deserves. Join us in our upcoming episode as we unveil the secrets of end of summer lawn care. We're diving into strategies that will breathe new life into your post-summer lawn, waving goodbye to those unwanted pests and assessing your lawn's health for a flawless transition into the fall season. Get ready to make your Bermuda grass lawn shine even as the seasons change. Stay tuned, bld ears, because your lawn's post-summer rejuvenation is just a listen away. See you next time.
Speaker 3:Thanks for joining us on this episode of the BLD podcast. We hope you enjoyed our lawn care discussions and the lawn beer of the week. Remember, as we sip and tend to our lawns, let's get greener together. Keep mowing, keep sipping and keep dominating those lawns. Until next time, stay green and cheers.
